Xbox 360 Street Fighter IV FightStick

Just so everyone knows -- these sticks are not Limited Edition or anything of the sort. They are being made according to the limits of production in relation to demand. Madcatz has never stopped making these sticks. This is perhaps the most unbiased review you will read... so listen up.

Oh, and don't bother paying anything more than retail. That's a joke.

Anyways, to the review...

If you pay anything more than $90 for this stick, you will be severely disappointed. Not only will you be required to void the warranty on the controller to prevent the joystick from breaking -- but replacing it with a new one will bring the cost up to near 'Tournament Edition (149.99)' prices.

What you are paying for is labor and an arcade stick box -- REMEMBER THAT. Quality arcade controllers run from $100 to $200 because of the labor involved, the inner circuitry/wiring, and the cost of the parts. For $80 you are getting a stupidly good deal on a box,...Read more

If you're looking for a great arcade stick box to mod this is the thing you need. You don't need to solder anything due to everything being quick disconnects.

But for the regular consumer this product... well at least mine... was a piece of crap.

Defects:
-Joystick sticking to the right due to loose washer
-5 out of the 8 buttons stopped registering more than %50 of the time before my sanwa parts came in
-Screws holding the stick were stripped and the stick fell through the box the first day I recieved it.

For $80 a controller should not do that, no matter what you're buying it for. I was never rough with it or slammed the buttons. I'm a very light tapper and I'm very relaxed on the joystick. If it wasn't for the fact that I'm technically savvy when it comes to arcade sticks this would have been a nightmare purchase for me.

Edit: Raised the rating a bit due to being mod friendly.

I bought this back in April '09, during the craze when arcade sticks were impossible to find. I would have preferred the tournament edition, but this popped up on Amazon and I grabbed it. I've been very happy with it overall. I'll assume most people are looking at this as a controller for Street Fighter or other fighting games. I have played a fairly heavy amount of matches on this stick for the past several months with no difficulties, and I highly recommend it.

I first became interested in switching to a stick because I wanted to start playing charge characters. This is the typical Bison/Blanka/Chun/Guile sort of character whose moves are something like charge back 2 seconds then forward + kick. First and foremost, charge motions just don't work very well on a normal controller's directional pad. Additionally, one of the easiest ways for a newbie to learn charge characters is to sit on a down-back charge quite a bit. This stick has a square gate on it, so that...Read more