No worries, it’s info that’s good to know. Thanks.
You may have better luck asking Markman (@MarkMan23) on twitter since he was at a MLG event this weekend and will be at PAX this week (according to his tweets).
No reply back from Madcatz customer service I take it?
Thanks for the tip. Yeah, I spoke with a Mike from support, but no response yet.
My apologies as well if I was wrong about opening the top panel as a warranty void.
But what happens when we order parts (I’m ordering one) from the madcatz store?
Like side panels, bezels etc. How does the warranty play?
When you buy those parts, you basically tell Madcatz that you don’t mind voiding warranties for a prettier stick.
Sounds like MadCatz is going back to being MadCatz.
Assume that any and all work you do on your stick, besides cleaning the outside of it, will void your warranty.
It’s not a bad strategy. Invest a lot of money in marketing, become a major player in the community, then start bumping up prices while reducing quality to make max profits. Not that I think MadCatz is doing that on purpose, but if they are, it’s clever.
Mad Catz is a bit schizophrenic. When I got my EVO stick, the green button was a Mad Catz button. When I ordered a bunch of Brawlsticks, I had enough Sanwa switches to fully convert a stick to Sanwa.
It sucks to open your stick and void your warranty but that’s the best way to confirm that something’s wrong. Give MarkMan and/or userSDK (the other Mad Catz employee who drops by occasionally here) a shout and they’ll help you out.
I don’t think this is intentional or malicious but an explanation from Mark would be cool.
We will take care of this. Sorry for the late reply. I’ve been traveling/away from the office for the last two weeks and haven’t had a chance to sync up with my support team on this.
Regardless, we stand by our product and will back it up. Our commitment to the community is an important one, so rest assured we will take care if this.
VZX, please email me at MarkMan@madcatz.com directly with your info. Also please send me your support ticket numbers and we’ll be sure to take care if you. Thanks.
I saw the MadCatz MLG Pro stick on sale at Amazon.com for $99. I was excited because it was the cheapest stick with supposedly all Sanwa parts. For that price I’d deal with the ugly MLG logos. But I held off on the purchase when I saw this thread. It will be my first arcade stick ever. I want to make sure I get a good one. If I pop open the case and don’t find Sanwa buttons can I get them fixed easily?
Would it be cheaper or faster to just swap out the parts myself? I am no stranger to electronics. As long as nothing needs to be de-soldered I’ll be fine.
If this is going to be a big hassle I’m thinking about going with the QANBA Q4 or the HRAP V3 SA KAI (hate the artwork on the HRAP though)
What are some others’ thoughts on this? I’d prefer to spend less than $100 but I am willing to get quality if it means paying more (from $150-$160).
SuperVehicle: do a bit of research, look into the past history of MadCatz. Don’t be blinded by the latest fads and marketing strategies like most sheeple. Just because you see Daigo on stream with a MadCatz stick on his lap don’t rush into assumptions on the product being top quality (ask why he’s really using that brand and look at his connections). And finally, maybe go with a reputable company who’s been in the business before all this fighting game boom post 2009 happened.
SuperVehicle: Other TEs are also going for 100$. I got the MadCatz SFxT Stick from their site for 99$ as well (Plus shipping of course.) If you want to be sure you don’t get knock-off buttons, the SCV or SFxT sticks (For PS3) should be guaranteed to use Sanwa since these buttons are not used in any other stick but the SCV or SFxT sticks.
And I recommend a TE or SE for your first stick if you plan to mod it. MadCatz sticks are probably the easiest to mod, and are ideal for the beginner. But if you want to jump in with such haste, go for the Hori, but it’ll be harder to change the artwork, IIRC.
Damn, I’m gonna have to go home and pop open my MLG stick and check too.
nvm
I’ve been traveling most of yesterday so I haven’t had time to update. MadCatz support did get back to me and said they’ll be sending me replacements.
Thanks, Markman, I really appreciate your response to the problem. I think TooLateForRoses also had the same problem, so I think it’d be best if they can contact you about the problem too and get it resolved.
I can’t say which stick you should get as the MLG is my first as well. However, as you saw here, if there is a problem with the buttons, MadCatz should be willing to fix it for you.
Lets see~
Happ: Chinese shit now
MAS: Solid cases, faulty PCBs (Hi Dreamcast Support), terrifying solder jobs
Hori: Don’t even pretend that hori doesn’t have some piss poor arcade sticks, or like the PCBs don’t die.
Madcatz makes perfectly fine arcade sticks, they’re as fine- if not better than Hori in some areas.
Madcatz is also taking care of the problem as they have with almost all of the problems with their sticks I’ve seen. As someone who has modded many Madcatz (and Hori, and MAS) sticks I can tell you that this is an incredibly isolated problem (although a bit puzzling), and I’ve never seen it in my travels. Kindly shut the fuck up.
You’re seriously comparing Hori who’ve not only released arcade sticks for home usage but also provided their supplies directly to arcades since well before the SF4 boom to Madcatz? Madcatz who had previously built a reputation for making gaming peripherals famous for falling apart/breaking well before its time (sometimes right out of the box). I’m not making this stuff up, look it up. But no, you make generalized statements about defective products from other companies – no shit defects exist, but they should be an exception not the norm. And you, deliberately, dodge the point: Madcatz has had a long history of faulty products; in fact it was so bad that that’s what they were known for prior to their current newfound success – for them, defective products was the norm.
Yeah I’ll bet this is “incredibly isolated” coming from a company for known quality like Madcatz, and it really is puzzling at to what the reason may be. Old habits die hard, and it takes more than 3 to 5 years for company practices to turn a new leaf. I understand that you and countless others have poured hundreds of dollars into Madcatz sticks and that you feel the urge to defend them at all costs, but please take their stick out of your ass. The fact that you’re comparing a reputable company like Hori who’ve supplied directly to arcades to Madcatz who were known for putting out defective products on a regular basis is the real joke. Keep lying to yourselves.
You can click “dislike” all you want but why not just report me to a mod and have me banned. I think that’ll soothe the butthurt a lot better. Keep fighting the good fight ye Madcatz soldiers!
When talking about hardware, there is always glitches, no matter how good the company is. I’m sure Hori has sent out some lemons just as Madcatz has. My personal opinion is that I have no history with Hori but with Madcatz, they have always felt “cheap” to me. That is until I tried a SF4 TE. That was the stick that made me want a stick. But that is also one example.
My personal opinion is that if you aren’t buying Qanba, you’re a fucking moron anyway. But I realize that Qanbas don’t fit everyone like they do me and BOTH Madcatz and Hori make excellent sticks. Better to celebrate what we do have than bitch yes/no?
Except this isn’t a defective product, it’s a manufacturing mistake…
The various stick cases are solid and easy to mod.
The stick and buttons used in the TE/PRO/VS sticks are normally Sanwa’s.
The PCB’s in the Madcatz sticks have had some issues in the past but I haven’t heard of any significant problems past the original TE1’s.
In this case + other (hopefully isolated) cases something went wrong at manufacturing and stock buttons were used instead. For sure it’s not a great thing to happen but it sounds like they’re taking care of it.
It’s nice to have a rep here acknowledge the problem too. It might be unfair to Hori but the only time I’ve seen a Hori representative post on here is to introduce new products.
And that’s probably the crux of why I think you’re off base with your hate toward Madcatz. Sure they’ve had crappy products before. I still remember a Madcatz gamepad I had that broke several weeks after being purchased new. But their sticks have for the most part been solid and they’ve been active with the community in providing support.
It doesn’t wash clean the terrible products Madcatz produced in the past but I think the “3 to 5 years” of a good product has earned Madcatz a little slack. At least in my book.