I am looking into getting an arcade stick (preferably two players) for the PS3. At the moment, it seems as though the X-arcade is the only 2-player stick available for use on PS3. I have done a bit of research on X-arcade and have seen good and bad things. The good things weem to be coming exlusively from professional review sites, while the negative are coming out of consumer reviews. The common criticisms include lag, poor quality parts, and slow/poor quality service. I have a couple questions for this forum.
Are there any other 2-player sticks for PS3? I’m really looking to compare 2-player sticks.
How about single player sticks?
Are these products compatable with PS2, PC, etc.?
Any specific things I should know about X-arcade?
X-Arcade. The good X-Arcade reviews are from casual, old-school gamers, and quite frankly, Pacman and Street Fighter are two totally different things. X-Arcades can be good if you mod them, but you have to pretty much mod EVERYTHING inside the case. Which leads me to option #2, which I have personally done myself…
Build your own. With much experience with X-Arcades, I can say there is ONE good thing about them, and that’s the case. It has a nice simple style, and is extremely durable. So I went to the X-Arcade site and bought a blank 2-Player case for $20, spent another $30 or so getting parts from LizardLick, then another $25 or so getting PCBs to hack. You will spend less than buying a pre-assembled X-Arcade, and with a little work have a much better product.
Buy two 1-Player sticks. This will be the most popular option for most SRKers. Get a pair of HRAP3s or VSHGs. Then you won’t have to worry about the possibility of homo-erotic feelings because you may brush up against a pal using a 2-Player stick.
Unless you’re building an arcade cab, Just get two 1 player sticks.
If you’re building an arcade cab, build your own 2 player control panel and be sure to space p1 and p2 out, The Xarcade 2 player is a little too close together in my opinion
I’m looking up on the Hori and Virtua Stick High Grades, and I wanted to ask a few follow-up questions.
What are the differences between the “Hori Fighting Stick 3” and the “Hori Real Arcade Pro Stick 3”? Besides the obvious price difference of $40, what are the differences.
Which would you personally recommend; the Hori? or the Virtua Stick?
Are the joystick bases square, octagonal, or round?
HFS3 uses all Hori parts, which aren’t that great. It also requires a bit more work if you ever want to mod it. Small case.
HRAP3 uses a Sanwa JLF stick and Hori buttons. Replacing the buttons with arcade quality parts is very easy. All you have to do is pop out the old buttons and snap in the new ones. The stick also has a nice size and weight to it.
I haven’t been keeping up with VSHG and HRAP3, so you should do a bit of searching around these forums regarding bugs and whatnot.
The difference between the two is that the Hori FS3 sucks. the VSHG is a much better stick and is a great stick overall. Though you might trouble with moves requiring three button inputs. All of the Japanese stock joysticks are square gates I think with a Sanwa JLF. Even the FS3 has a square gate for it’s knock off hori stick. Rather then then FS3. get a Hori Real Arcade Pro 3. Which is also a very very good stick, and might actually even be better the the VSHG. That also comes with the Sanwa JLF + square gate, and doesn’t have the 3 button input issues. You might want to switch out the buttons with actual Sanwa buttons since they’re stock hori knock offs. But those can be easily replaced, since it comes with Quick disconnects. It’s literally as easy as disconnecting a controller from you system, and putting another one in.
You can easily find the answers with a little research in Tech Talk, but I’ll give you some quick answers.
Hori Fighting Stick uses all Hori parts, while Hori Real Arcade Pro uses a real Sanwa stick and hori buttons. Also obvious is the size difference.
Virtua Stick High Grade has odd button mapping for most games since it is meant for Virtua Fighter, but that can be easily fixed. It uses ALL Sanwa parts.
They should all have square-gates, as that is the Japanese standard.
I think the overall preference is for the VSHG, but the Hori sticks are much easier to get.