So I know it’s perfectly fine to play Mortal Kombat using a standard Astro City layout 6-button joystick, but I can never quite shake the feeling that I’m missing part of the MK experience by not having that iconic “x” layout that the arcade version of Mortal Kombat uses. Unfortunately, the MK layout wasn’t quite ergonomically designed, and since MK is pretty much the only series that uses it, that makes the prospect of owning a dedicated MK stick a bit impractical.
Well, just for giggles I’ve started playing around with ideas for alternate stick layouts which, wiht the help of button hole plugs, can easily accommodate either Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat’s layouts while still maintaining a comfortable, ergonomic design. I think I may be on to something, but I’d like some feedback (and please, no MK bashing, that is not why I made this thread).
Here’s a standard Astro City 8 button layout, for reference:

I never particularly found the buttons on the far right of the AC layout particularly useful, and since almost all 6 button layouts end up dropping them anyway, I cut them out and moved the button layout to the right. The extra space can be used for two more buttons on the left, which make a slant. While that in itself is a decent 8 button layout, it’s still not quite MK-friendly enough so I moved the top row a wee bit to the left. Hopefully this is not a big enough change to detract from the time-tested comfort of the AC layout, but I think I’d want to drill out a prototype just to be sure.

So that’s basic idea behind the Street Kombat layout-- to be a universal layout that can easily and quickly be changed for any fighting game layout (provided you have button hole plugs and don’t mind opening your case up). Here are some examples:

By plugging the top left button and the :mp: button, you essentially have a more ergonomic version of the classic MK layout with the run button. You can also swap out the “run” button back to the :mp: button position and use the astro-city-esque 6 button layout.

And as a freebie, you also have the bonus option of having a diagonally slanted straight row of 6 buttons. It doesn’t sound particularly appealing to me, but hey, it’s there.

My main concern is that moving the top row over as compared to the astro city layout would make 6-button play feel more cramped, thus diminishing the appeal of using the AC layout as a base. The idea here is to have the best of both words while minimizing any comprimise that is made to comfort during use of whichever layout you currently are set up for. Any thoughts / opinions? (and if you are just going to say something cheeky about MK, please re-read the second paragraph)