I’ve been also wondering if the model of the PS3 is relevant as well.
While I don’t have that many PS3-only sticks/controllers (just a TE Rnd1, Hori FC3 and FC3Pro, Exaprize USB) I could provide info on those if you need.
Awesome, I already put the request for input on the What stick to buy page.
20GB and 60GB have the EE+GS combo chip. 80GB is software emulation.
So, to sum up —
Backwards-compatibility is only an issue on the 20, 60, and 80-GB (4-USB port) models of the PS3. (NOTE: There’s more than one 80-GB PS3 model out there. The backwards compatible version is the 4-port USB model released with the Metal Gear Solid pack-in.) All other PS3 models lack the PS2 circuity required to play PS2 discs. The Hori joysticks and Cthulu-equipped joysticks have been confirmed for years to be fine with PS2 games played through PS3 (although why you’d bother when even the original release PS3 models aren’t 100% in PS2 playback is another question unless you’re really hard up for space or your PS2 is dead; makes even less sense if you own Japanese PS2 games since PS3 retains DVD region coding restrictions.). You should not go wrong with joysticks that have those PCB’s.
The Mad Catz line is a different story… only the TE-S redesigned PCB’s on-up will work. That means most square TE’s, the FightStick Pro, and VS should all be fine with the BC PS3’s. I’m not sure about some of the limited edition TE’s (Chun Li, BlazBlue) joysticks. There were issues of “mixing and matching” PCB’s with different case frames. Definitely steer clear of the Round 1 and Round 2 TE’s unless you’re a collector or don’t care about the PS2 BC issue on the PS3’s.
You can pretty much forget all the other joysticks out there unless you re-equip with a Cthulu. (Don’t own a PS360+, don’t intend to buy one, and they seem to have more issues despite the added/easier X360 support. I just know that my MC Cthulu’s haven’t let me down and support more game consoles than the PS360+ does thus far. PS360+ is definitely for dual-system owners that hate to “weld”/solder.) They’re either unlicensed (Qanba) with reverse-engineered or “bootleg” PCBs’s and/or don’t have the Sony PS code that enables BC of third-party peripherals (which include USB-adapted PS2 peripherals – ie, Hori PS2 joysticks, DS2 pads). Remember that before the Chun Li LE release that Mad Catz didn’t have the official Sony seal of approval/confirmed licensing and Sony wouldn’t give Mad Catz the PS3 code for BC. That’s why the older TE releases had generic home/“house” buttons on the cases instead of a PS symbol.
The new “PS2” releases online and in-store are reprogrammed games. Emulated or not, these are NOT the same old PS2 discs. Given what happened with the Bleem! emulator released for the Dreamcast late in that system’s American lifespan, it just may not really be possible to program an emulator that covers all bases with the PS2 games on the mainline stock PS3’s. Bleem! was originally supposed to cover 100+ PS1 games but it just didn’t work out that way and the program had to be customized for each PS1 game… The Dreamcast just didn’t have the memory for a more complete emulator that could handle that many games. We were still dealing with console memory in single and small double digits of MB RAM back then. Besides the memory issue, it also turned out a bunch of PS1 games had programming errors in them that created issues with the Bleem! emulator. As it was, only 3 Bleem! emulator discs (Tekken 3, Gran Turismo 2, Metal Gear Solid – required the original PS1 discs to play on the Dreamcast) were released since Sony sued the developer out of existence.