new hori stuff on amazon japan. WRAP series. No “SA” or “SE” monkier, Just Hayabusa kanji.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1908672/candy/516J-pXrEvL_AA1000_.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1908672/candy/514TFyFz85L_AA1000_.jpg
now can everyone stop complaining about FE-exclusivity.
Still in production though, might never come :v
Sometimes it sucks that Hori doesn’t think that much about overseas market. I really wanna see a W RAP VX.
I’d rather see the new V3SA’s that were announced at E3.
YO DOGE I HERD U LIKE TO PLINK… SO WE SAKO NOW.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1908672/candy/raphayab.jpg
so if 8 button is dick, what is 9 button?
i seriously thought this was a error in the graphics department, but it seems like its legit 30mm start button o-o
http://www.wonder.co.jp/game/hori.php
http://item.rakuten.co.jp/wondergoo/10095013/
unwashed uncircumcised dick
Eh…
Hori’s selling to the “must have it all” collectors for sure!
They’re getting to the point where they’re like Nintendo and Pokemon…
(To be fair, Mad Catz has already been there for a while with all the TE variants.)
Same old HRAP V3 case, new control lever. Still the same pain-in-the-butt to mod and swap out buttons and control lever as it always was!
(In fairness, I’ve read here on SRK that the Mad Catz FightStick Pro isn’t much better and the form on that is very similar to the HRAP V3.)
One other difference I see besides the ninth 30mm button is the lack of individual Turbo switches for the 30mm buttons. Going with a Turbo toggle button again like the HRAP 3’s…
I was reminded of “the ease of modding” today as I swapping out a balltop handle and Seimitsu stick shaft on my HRAP V3. It was EASIER to do this on the older Astrocade-style HRAP 3’s where you could open from the top (IF you had the HRAP 3 SA/SE or a top-modded HRAP 3) instead of having to flip the joystick case over and remove the baseplate every time! Sure, you can buy Art Hong plexis that let you open from the top but that’s more money you SHOULDN’T have to spend unless you want to.
The HRAP N3 isn’t much more convenient for mods, either, but has quite a bit more heft to it. I think it’s also prettier-looking than the HRAP V3 which looks TOO MUCH like a lower cost version of the Fighting Edge or the HRAP VLX.
Hori definitely needs to step up their stick architectural design and avoid all the design mistakes they made with the HRAP V3 and N3. There needs to be space inside for people with hands bigger than a baby’s to move around in! I’d say in both stick cases you have to practically cut away internal plastic to fit things in like LED boards, dual/alternate system PCB’s, and control levers besides the JLF. I got really annoyed that I had to remove the baseplate on the HRAP SC V (N3-SA?) case to install an LS-32. As always, the LS-32 can’t be installed on the faceplate with the PCB attached. The PCB always has to be off FIRST before you can screw in the mounting plate. The -32 PCB (thanks to brilliant Seimitsu design!) covers the mounting screw areas.
In the HRAP N3, you also can’t lower the assembled LS-32 into the body of the N3 base! (Same issue would probably affect the LS-40 which isn’t much less bulky than the LS-32. The LS-33, -55, -56, and -58 might have have the access issues since they’re much smaller-engineered control levers.) The plastic surrounding the stick installation gets in the way and you have to snake the joystick lever around and through it, OR cut a bunch of that plastic off altogether to fit the stick in without having to perform contortions every time you service the joystick or change parts. A number of people did that with their HRAP N3 cases when they bought the SC V licensed version in 2012.
I’ll be very impressed if Hori addresses these issues in their next new joystick case design but I’m not holding my breath… They have a smaller presence in the American market as-is and it’s not as easy to get their product as Mad Catz’s in general. They could lose more people if they continue to produce such “mod-unfriendly” joysticks. They may not want to acknowledge that part of the joystick hardware market directly but their competitors (Mad Catz and Razer at least) sure are!
The Razer Atrox and Mad Catz Tournament Edition 2 are the stick designs to at least match next year. Short of the Fighting Edge and HRAP VLX, I don’t think most current or past production Hori product is as classy-looking and designed with the tournament player (let alone modder) in mind as those two joysticks!
Once I saw the 30mm start button I just went “Oh… that’s very unfortunate”.
hey euros are usually uncircumcised… wat about unwashed dik without balls that dropped down?
Gotta catch em’ all.
Well, at least it says it’s still in development phase, so the final product may be different.
But for 12000 yen it’s pretty ok for everyone that wanted a hayabusa and kuro buttons, right?
ive traded my FE for a VLX, the lever is just too strict when it came to diagonals!
Oh, you caught the comment! LOL
Seriously, though… Hori’s gotta step up their game and make a better value offering to stick players.
(Complaints all aside, I really DO like the HRAP N3-SA. Exterior-wise, it’s a beautiful base and has a nice hefty weight to it. The inside just coulda been a bit better designed… There’s no reason for anybody to have to take off the baseplate with buttonhead screws latching down the faceplate! Major, major design goof of theirs on Hori’s part…)
Right now, they have nothing in production that really equals the TE2 or the Razer Atrox for features.
Right now, with the LED included at the $200 pricepoint – on top of matching EVERYTHING ELSE Razer did with the Atrox --, the TE2 is the frontrunner, shortages or not.
That includes the Fighting Edge, amazing new Hori-designed parts and what-not. The early English-written reviews I read were at best mixed on that joystick. I’m beginning to feel glad I passed on it. Did not feel about about waiting for and eventually getting a Diamond VLX!
I’ve gotta commend Mad Catz for putting what they did into the TE2 joystick. (Yes, I’m shilling for a PS4 or even a PS3 version!) THAT’S value for the money if you want your $200-worth.
It’s a good thing so many gamers are cheapskates otherwise I don’t see how Hori is going to sell that many generic HRAP V3’s otherwise…
They should stick this in an HRAP2 style case and I’d be sold. I don’t even use Japanese parts but I wouldn’t mind owning an HRAP2 hayabusa instead of a HRAP V3-SA hayabusa.
Making the switch back to an older case style is probably too expensive though
I didn’t like the V3/VX case either. Not enough palm space for my Jack Skellington hands.
No, it wouldn’t be.
The Astrocade base mold they used for the HRAP 1, 2, and 3 paid for itself probably more than a few production cycles ago.
The reason Hori is not using this base anymore is because of the emphasis on new joystick case lines, the need to reinvent their joystick line. Joysticks – especially higher-price tourney/deluxe models – have NEVER been as popular as they have been the last few years. Everything else that consumers buy gets a redesign every 3-5 years… (Cars, electronics, computers.) Why shouldn’t a luxury/tourney joystick get a revamp once in a while, too? That’s how you keep people interested in buying these things… That’s how you keep the same captive audience in the hobby whether people like it or not. Nobody’s holding a gun to anyone’s head and forcing them to buy new joysticks!
They (Hori) NEVER changed the HRAP base for the better part of at least 4-5 years! The first major HRAP revision was the HRAP V3-SA and that didn’t hit market until late 2009 (Japan). The only differences between the previous 3 HRAP’s were the faceplate button layouts. The HRAP 1 had leftward sloping buttons (see Tekken 5, Arcana Heart 2; same faceplate layout minus the Turbo panel) and the HRAP 2 and 3 had the same arched finger layout that was common for the Sega Astro panels… All licensed HRAP 2 variants I’ve seen (anime character art, game licensed) had HRAP 1 faceplate button layout minus the Turbo panel. The major differences for HRAP 2 and 3 besides individual turbo button switches on the HRAP 2 (like the HRAP 1) was the universality of the HRAP 2 mounting plate.
Over half the HRAP 3’s had the non-universal mounting bracket many of us came to hate when we decided the JLF wasn’t cutting it for us…! Grrrrr… That’s why as far as the HRAP 3 is concerned, the HRAP 3 SA/SE limited edition models are more desirable. It’s easy enough to buy an HRAP 2, mod it with cap socket buttons and glued-in hex nuts so that you don’t have to take the baseplate off every time you want to swap out a button or change spring tension. The harder mod part on the HRAP 3 is the joystick mounting bracket mod. I never read or heard of a chemical method that would safely remove the non-universal mount otherwise! Every method I ran across – other than severe plastic shaving of joystick bodies – involved drilling through the joystick mount weld areas. That was the “sure” way to get rid of that pain!
The Mad Catz TE with the use of all-Sanwa parts (including buttons!) and a universal joystick mount area forced Hori to rethink how they did the HRAP’s and make the Sanwa Addition (SA) models the production standard instead of the limited edition exception! All HRAP V3/VX’s and HRAP N3/NX’s have been SA models with the exception of very limited edition Seimitsu Edition production. We can all thank Mad Catz for that!
IF it hasn’t broken – last HRAP to use that Astro style base was I believe the HRAP 3 Tekken Tag Tournament Prologue 2 joystick(?) that was released in late 2010/early 2011(?) --, the mold should still be useable.
Heck, Kenner/Hasbro used the Millennium Falcon mold they created for the action figure playset for a LONG time… It only got retired after the Star Wars revival in the late 1990s. It FINALLY broke after one last production cycle and was replaced by a new more detailed mold. This was a mold that was late 1970s vintage!
You think the FE mold has paid for itself yet? Or is that why they are pushing the white version out now?
The FE’s still new.
It’s less than a year old… I doubt Hori’s lost money on it but they still have to renew interest in it. That’s separate from whether the FE mold has paid itself off or not. One thing’s for sure – Hori DIDN’T change the styling on the HRAP’s for years (2004-2008) because they were basically the only game in town and didn’t have to compete with other manufacturers. It’s a totally different story with Mad Catz in the picture… and with Razer (unless it chooses to stay MS exclusive or skip out next-gen) likely to join the joystick field, too. I suspect Qanba will be in next-gen, too, but they’ll have to decide whether to become legit and get a license so that they can manufacture PS4 and XBone joysticks from the start or wait out until bootleggers decrypt/reverse-engineer the security chips on the new consoles.
The FE color change is for collectors as well as people who may have passed on the previous production FE because they didn’t want “another black plastic joystick”.
We have people on the forums who buy practically every joystick out there. I would bet at least 15-20% of the people who will buy a White FE probably already have a Black FE and are planning to add the White FE to the collection or trade out the older version for the new.
It’s like anything else people collect.
Yeah, Hori could have done another run in black but it’s been out for over a year already so switching to white plastic injection was probably a better move.
Aside from the out-of-production and presumably discontinued-for-good HRAP VLX, that FE joystick seems to be positioned as Hori’s last gen deluxe model.
It’s funny though that they left Turbo functionality out of it and deleted support for analog stick functions. You might as well have a Cthulu PCB in it!
I still think the Razer Atrox and Mad Catz Tournament Edition 2 are better buys at $200. The LED on the TE2 puts it over the top as the current premium joystick to beat.
The fact that the LED’s are assigned to 30mm buttons instead of just being sidestrip LED’s seems classier than the FE. That’s certainly more appealing and generally more useful as far as more people are concerned – at least the guys who want LED’s.
People will still buy the White FE but Hori’s really got to ramp its act and get something newer and a bit flashier. Or at least offer something that’s worth $200 to more people.
The PS4 and XBox One certainly aren’t crowded with joysticks now, either. There’s the market they have to seed next year as well as seeing what they can still sell to this past gen of consoles.
The 9-button SakoStick looks like a disaster (unmodded) – does it have a switch to reverse Start/Select?
Yes it does, need replacement plexy to remove 3 buttons. Make it less dirty European unwashed uncircumcised dick.
Button hole covers are also Dick.
Also
The V3’s design is spot on. Hopefully for the next gen, they’ll evolve on this same design with more upgradeability and better build materials, ala the VLX. I’m hard pressed to purchase another stick until they actually start giving shit, especially after owning a VLX.