You guys are like the only place that sells American/European-style sticks and buttons anymore (IL). Thanks for that.
NOS, let me know we can replace a switch if needed,
Thanks for all the well wishes guys, Susan has left town, leaving me to hold down the fort alone so please be patient for the next 5 days.
Patients? What is that?
I thought that was YOUR field!
(Yes, bad punâŚ)
Hope the memorial ceremony goes well for your wife, btw.
There are other US vendors that sells happ and /or IL parts but they mostly focus on Coin-Op machines for profit and other entertainment for profit businesses.
They often service to businesses that have Slot machines, Pool Tables, and other commercial entertainment.
Paradise Arcade is one of the few that caters to the hobbyist communities such as the M.A.M.E. Community and The Fighting Game community where SRK falls Under.
Today I received my JLF spring, actuator and PS360+ with a lovely âmahaloâ from Susan with some nice chocolate covered macadamia nuts. Nice touch! My condolences to Susan and I hope she has a safe return from Minnesota.
Oh,
You had to say the magic âMâ word!
Macadamias are arguably Hawaiiâs greatest culinary gift to the mainland!
>sigh< If I only had the cash to visit Hawaii! There are very few places I want to sightsee. Hawaii, Australia, and more of the Western US are tops on the listâŚ
I never saw the PS-14-G buttons on the Paradise Website, either.
Did find another thing or two that looks interesting and very much want to buy in the near future.
(The Hoku balltops glow with strong LED? I normally hate white balltops â unless they match a joystick best[!] since white is the most overused game part color in Japanese joysticks â but this one and the boneball both sound neat!)
Darksul, I think we are the only ones in the us left selling IL, but Happ parts are pretty common.
Penguin, thank you for the kind words and glad you enjoyed the package
George, come on over any time
Really? I guess IL did fell out of popularity even though the IL parts are said to be superior to Happ.
I knew Happ parts are common cause I found a half dozen other sites that sold happ parts, but all the other sites I found cater to the amusement industry.
They are like cold and unfeeling compared to the personal touch you and your wife have when dealing with us.
Thanks for the complimentsâŚ
IL was the original supplier of Happ until Happ moved all product to China, replaced Cherry micros with, E-switch and generally screwed up their controls. The margins on IL sticks are small, much smaller than Happ, but they are a better stick. Many of the US vendors stopped carrying them because of the margins and went with Happ instead. We chose quality.
The funny part is that in the fighting community people donât bat an eye at spending 20-30 on a joystick, so the difference between an $8 happ and a $12 IL is minimal, just buy the better stick, but in the classic and mame community that $4 difference is huge. What I find really funny about the Mame guys, is they will spend 100âs of hours building a 4 player machine, and then try to save $16 on the joysticks. If Iâm going to invest that kind of time, Iâm putting the best damn part I can find into the machine.
Yeah,
I never understood that whole thing with the retro community, either. Letâs spends a thousand or more on a new gaming-dedicated computer, hundreds more on a replica/authentic cabinet but skimp on the actual controllers!!! Makes you want to slap their faces!!!
The MAME guys insist on authenticity but guess what?!? They NEVER used Happ parts in Japan where a bunch of these games originated from! I use Japanese parts because theyâre a hell of a lot more comfortable to play with and more accurate. I can comfortably play well over an hour on HRAPâs or TEâs but can barely tolerate 10 minutes with something like a Happ-equipped MAS Joystick! My fingers hurt and itâs hard to coordinate the special moves on the American-style joysticks, too. I could have easily gotten carpal tunnel way back then if I had been a serious arcade gamer and not used gamepads at home⌠(No, I still donât have carpal tunnel. I guess Iâm a lucky fool!)
Half the American parts used in the old arcade machines from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s donât appear to be in production anymore at any rate. I would still prefer to use an LS-32 to the original Pac-Man lever to play that game or just about anything else that doesnât require an analog controller. (Donât know why, maybe nostalgia, but Iâm still thinking about getting a Wico-style balltop at any rateâŚ)
It still amazes me the myths that some gamers cling to. They actually think the Sanwa/Seimitsu digital pushbuttons have âdifferentialâ force capability! Eh⌠no. Digital, as I undestand it, is âon/offâ or âyes/noâ, or close circuit/open circuit. I think only analog is variable force. Only analog buttons to my knowledge can be used as accelerators or âvariableâ/âdifferentialâ force buttons. Thereâs also still a crowd that believes mashing down hard on buttons will make characters jump higher in some of the Capcom Marvel games when itâs actually quick lever down, quick lever up, or three kicks or three punches that enables high jumps. Mashing down hard is only going to potentially damage buttons or bend a faceplate!
To be honest, armi, I NEVER liked the American parts to begin with.
I rarely played in arcades because the Happ style joysticks, buttons, and the straight-style âCapcom Americaâ layout (of the buttons) was very uncomfortable to me.
Playing at home with joysticks at the time wasnât comfortable, either. I had Ascii and Hori joysticks for my Saturn (the Saturn console still exists and is a treasured collectible to me, but the joysticks were ultimately hacked and destroyed in early mod experiments; fortunately, I saved the system cords and reused those with my MC Cthuluâs!) but a) the joysticks were very loose on both and b) the Hori buttons felt like hitting bricks⌠The Ascii pushbuttons, oddly enough, feel like todayâs Sanwa pushbuttons.
My first pro stick was a Mad Catz Tournament Edition Round 1 but something was still off. I liked the buttons but never came around to feeling comfortable with the Sanwa JLF despite months of practice and what felt like thousands of mods to the stick tensionâŚ
Then, I tried the HRAP 3 SE (Seimitsu Edition, LS-32-01, PS-14-D and PS-14-G buttons)⌠That changed everything!
The LS-32(-01) became my favored joystick with the LS-40-01 as a fallback for fighters. (The LS-40 was what used in Neo Geo cabinets in Japan.)
I donât play fighting games with gamepads anymore⌠Itâs all strictly joystick (LS-32 or LS-40 levers) for me. Itâs made the experience feel a bit more âauthenticâ but also opened up opportunities to use some of the digital photo-editing skills in creating new faceplate art from existing web images or scans from my artbooks.
As you might imagine, I wish the manufacturers would get off the Sanwa bandwagon and make more alternate-part equipped joysticks (obviously Seimitsu for me!) but that generally doesnât happen. Only Qanba seems to be making Seimitsu part-equipped joysticks regularly and those may be exclusive to one of the domestic part vendors⌠Hori does occasionally manufacture Seimitsu-equipped HRAPâs but the quantities for the PS3 have been very limited production â 500 units or less I believe per production cycle; most HRAP SEâs have been made for the XBox 360 due to the fact itâs positioned as a 2-D shooter platformer in Japan. (Far easier to buy and dual/multi-mod a 360 HRAP SE than it is to find a PS3 HRAP 3 SE.) The LS-32 is regarded as a better joystick lever for that style of game. (I think the LS-32 is better for fighting games in general but itâs definitely a better multi-genre stick than the JLF or LS-40 IMHO.)
One sad realization, though, is that I prefer âold schoolâ era fighting games (Capcom, some SNK), Sega Model 2 games, and MANY of the pre-1990s games (Atari era, Donkey Kong, Pac-Man/Plus/âMs.â, the original Star Wars arcade game) to a lot of whatâs popular now. I canât repeat how much I am not an FPS (aside from the original Doom series), sports game, OR tie-in movie game fan! Also, with the exception of Capcomâs Marvel fighters in the 1990s, the bulk of superhero fighting games just stink. Polygons also tend to drain the life from animation and I prefer hand-drawn sprite artwork myselfâŚ
P.S. â I bet at least one person reads âCapcom Americaâ as âCaptain America.â
Little psychological experiment on my partâŚ!
Ainât I a stinker?
Is anyone else encountering âNo payment modules have been installed.â when going through checkout?
We are shut down until tomorrow, the only way to not have google ding us is to just shutdown payment options. Sorry Susan is out of town for a funeral.
If I just wanted to order a bunch of button silencers (24), would it be possible to ship it first class for like 2 bucks rather than 6 for priority. Theyâre really light and I donât really need them in a hurry.
Thanks Bryan. I just wanted confirmation it wasnât something wrong with my account. Any word on when the New Thick silencers will make their debut on your site? Iâll hold off on ordering until then so I can get a bunch.
My prayers go out to you and your family.
No problem, I opened up the payment modules again.
We can ship first class but the easiest way to do it is to order and Susan will refund the money. We should have first class shipping on all items within a month or so.
armi,
I really donât want to push this hard because your wife is just getting back from the memorial service soon (or already has)âŚ
BUTâŚ
When might the new parts be listed and up for sale on the website?
[God there are times I hate being greedy but I just gotta ask sometimesâŚ]
pictures should be going up this week.
Alrighty!
Iâll be looking for them!
Hope the wife gets back safe and sound.
Death in the family is draining beyond beliefâŚ
Hey, Iâve tried messaging Paradise Arcade 3 times now and I called twice without answer. I ordered a PS360+ from you but found out as soon as I ordered that I needed the USB to RJ45 cable! I messaged right after I ordered but I never got an answer and now days later itâs been shipped and I donât want to pay $20 again for shipping a $13 cable. I was just wondering how we can get this sorted?
I wouldnât usually post this here but Iâve tried messaging multiple times and calling so I donât know what else I can do. Thanks
Susan was at her grandmothers funeral and I opened the store on Monday thinking weâd get some orders and the orders have been out of control. I will remind her, Iâm sure we can figure something out if itâs already shipped.