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Street Fighter Arcade Stick
If you’re new to fighting games like Street Fighter you will soon notice that the standard Xbox controller isn’t really designed for it. Street Fighter’s long tradition of one joystick and six buttons has deep roots in the arcade community and many will tell you to ditch the pad and get yourself a Street Fighter arcade stick. While a standard Xbox 360 controllers have more than enough buttons to map the inputs of the 6 attack buttons they still lack the physical layout and doesn’t translate that well. The analog sticks have a lot of play making it difficult to perform moves consistently, and the D-pad has its own problems as well. It won’t take long before you will have a sore thumb trying to input half circles and quarter circle motions.
Don’t despair though! Since the release of the new Street Fighter game – Street Fighter IV back in February 17, 2009 for Xbox many popular 3rd party peripherals manufacturers such as Hori and Madcatz have released a number of arcade sticks to the market making it easier to choose the right Street Fighter arcade stick for you.
Here are 2 options you may want to know more about. These are:
Hori Real Arcade Pro. EX Premium VLX
The newest stick from the well-known Japanese arcade stick manufacture is the Hori Real Arcade Pro. EX Premium VLX. The VLX has all Sanwa Denshi arcade quality parts. Sanwa Denshi is Japan’s number one supplier of arcade parts and also the supplier of the parts used in the official Street Fighter IV arcade machines. The VLX Street Fighter arcade stick was built in collaboration with Taito Corporation and gives you a home edition of the “Vewlix” arcade cabinet. The stick weighs approximately 5 kilograms and offers ample room to rest your hands on. It also features easy access to the inside of the stick with a face plate that opens as a real arcade cabinet would, making it quick and easy to change and/or replace buttons and parts. An “option board” is included and is designed for increased stability while playing and nice sized cable storage area is big enough to easily accommodate the USB cable. While most fighting game players won’t use this feature, there is a turbo function also. With 3 levels of speed and setting for each individual buttons.MadCatz Official Street Fighter IV Tournament Edition
The MadCatz Street Fighter IV Tournament Edition is officially Capcom and has unique Street Fighter IV artwork on the face. It also features a Sanwa JLF ball top joystick and 30mm snap in buttons as the Hori VLX. A D-pad control switch lets you choose between the left/right analog stick or the D-pad and gives you the ability to adapt the stick to other games. It has a heavy metal base, helping make it more stable while playing on the lap and rubber feet to stop it sliding about when play on a table. A control panel is located to the top left and indicates when Xbox has a notification or the Turbo feature is engaged. The turbo feature can also be locked here so you can’t accidently turn it on. This Street Fighter arcade stick also comes with a 13ft USB cable and easy storage for it.When both sticks were put to a field test they both worked as advertised. The Sanwa hardware in both sticks fells supper responsive, some may say a little too responsive as even a brush of a button will register the input. The VLX definitely feels a lot better in your lap compared to the TE. The extra weight really helps stabilize it, but although the TE is smaller and lighter it has more area in front of the buttons to rest your hands. My personal preference between these two is the VLX though. That extra weight and aesthetics make it feel more like playing at the arcade making it my choice for a Street Fighter arcade stick.