Even without those arrows it seems very intuitive. It's just a subsection of the dpad with each button being an image that represents itself.
You pretty much have to have a very specific image of a d-pad in mind. It helps that that d-pad is also the one in your hands, but you shouldn't have to look at the controller, or have its detailed look memorized, to figure it out.
I think what happened here is obvious: there’s a very longstanding software design pattern that was broken by a perfectly sensible hardware controller design. The solution is likely to just stop using that software pattern. Make analogous icons or whatnot.