Obvlously, it was important enough where one company in the NES days, Beeshu had (by today’s standards) non-traditional options.
When people though the only way to ambidexterize joysticks was mirroring buttons on both sides, by the time you got to 6 buttons, it wasn’t important enough relative to the price.
The question is, is doubling the internal wiring of a one-way stick plus adding either one button (home model) or one joystick (coin-op model) (the difference in cost of making my 2 models) make the price low enough where it is important enough relative to its cost to have at least one company mass-market it?
If it doubles the price, probably not. if it’s a 5% increase, it’s a no-brainer yes.
With the Xbox Button OS, it’s even easier and cheaper, no need for 2 sets of wires and connectors, just save a “goofy-handed” joystick option in any Xbox controller.
Current Xbox joysticks may mechanically ambidexteize through button reprograming, but the contour is off:
Currently, to hit all 8 buttons you have to cock your left wrist backwards (ouch) and reach farther than possible to hit the 2 index buttons without moving your button hand.
All you got to do this build the joystick in a contour that make sense both ways. Turn these pictures around and see for yourself:
I know a lot of SRKers might prefer a more perfectly conutoured button layout and don’t care a bit about ambidexterity. (unless they go to a lot of Street Fighter 2 tournaments, as a few SRKrers said it would be handy for, or have personal collections with lots of games, or go to tournaments where at least one game played is a mystery game revealed at competition time. My famous friend competed in many of them.) Remember you are not the audience they are looking for.
For a mass-market layout whose primary objective is to make an ambidextrous stick cheap enough to attract a market most sticxks aren’t hitting, does this have a GOOD ENOUGH contour in both directions where the typical mass-market buyer would care more that it’s ambidextrous than care about any contour imperfections that might be nitpicked over? Or is contour the big selling point?
If strangers are playing a game, wouldn’t ambidexterirty be an option that they would like more or 2 different fight stick options per person?
Beside, miniature golf courses heard enough golfers wanted both a right handed and a left handed putter, (because with obstacles, some of those right handed shots can be gymnastic, and made easier with a normal stance and a left handed putter) that pretty much every mini-golf course has all ambidextrous putters. Maybe some games you will prefer to play left handed and others right handed. If you believe SF2 is better with joystick on strong hand, and SF5 is better with buttons on strong hand, this is the perfect stick, and is cheaper than 2 sticks separately.
