Yeah, why ARE the buttons on the right these days? (Score 1)

I tried playing a Gameboy recently but didn't do very well trying to use the left-handed directional controller. Why don't they have the controller in the middle and buttons on BOTH sides so that people can do it either way? The Atari way of left hand button, right hand directional controller makes so much more sense - why IS it the other way on systems these days? I e-mailed Nintendo asking them this but got no reply. Does anyone have any insight into this?