I’m importing this stick to Australia… I ordered a SE prior to hearing all these stories about the faulty ‘goods’.
I was so hanging out for it to arrive (should be in the next 3-4 weeks) I hope mine isn’t faulty 
Will they offer free shipping on repairs to international customers? If MarkMan could answer this that would be much appreciated.
I haven’t popped mine open but it’s good to hear that if it’s not broke…it’s…not broke.
I’m thinking about swapping out the buttons. The stick works great but the buttons are starting to stick a little, and not in that “I spilled something on it” sorta way but the “man these buttons are cheap” way.
these stick are no good, just tested one.
I have a SE fightstick as well. I pre-ordered on Amazon, and then saw they were gonna be back-ordered. Well someone returned one to gamestop supposedly unused, but the seal was broken when I got home. At any rate, mine also sticks . It is a definate bummer at $79.99. I know that modding is possible, I actually have 3 full size cabinets in the garage. Unfortunately, I am kind of thinking that modding isn’t worth it to me as I wanted something that worked out the box. I went to lizardlick and priced a JLF and 8 buttons, and delivered is going to be almost $58. At 79.99 plus tax, plus mod costs…yeah, pretty much the same exact price as a tournament stick.
I think I may just take it back to gamestop as I already warned them that if it doesn’t work, it is coming back ASAP. I guess I could try calling madcatz, but it sounds like they are gonna be taking a month or two on turnaround. At that rate, I might as well just get the TE edition, or a SE edition after the newer ones come out.:sad:
Hey all new to the board…was looking for a little advice on my situation…
I was able to pick up a SE stick a few days before SFIV launch…I have yet to use it after hearing about the problems some were having + I was hoping I would come across a TE somehow. It seems like that isn’t going to happen anytime soon…so I’m not sure what to do with this stick…
Should I just try it once to make sure that it actually works at all…then swap the stick and buttons for Sanwa parts?..would that avoid what seems to be the problem with the SE?
After a good 2 hours of playing, there is a noticeable dead zone in the stick. I can still hit all 4 cardinal directions, but something is sticking to the point where I can’t do any kind of cancels. I imagine it only gets worse from there.
I really don’t want to wait 4-6 weeks, but man, spending $80 on something sucks when it doesn’t work out of the box.
So as long as your washer is in place, your fightstick should good? Gotta check this out at the store. By check in store, you mean to move the joystick around to feel if there is anything loose or grinding on the PCB right?
Thanks!
This is the stuff that class action lawsuits are made of. This is simply unacceptable by MadCatz, but did anyone seriously expect them to make a good product. I know the TE stick is good, simply because of the sanwa parts. I have a SE stick on order, and a JLF and sanwa buttons will be replacing the stock knock off parts. Madcatz needs a new QA person for sure. I hope someone loses their job over this.
Got my SE stick this afternoon, and after 3 mins of waggling I started to notice the movement wasn’t smooth anymore, with slight catching in one direction at a time.
Pushing to the left also doesn’t click as loudly as the other directions. Could that indicate a dodgy microswitch or could it simply be another side effect of the washer?
I plan to switch out the parts at some point, but I’m poor right now. I can’t decide whether to open it up or save the warranty in case that microswitch dies before I can afford replacements.
I spoke with MadCatz yesterday and they sent me the FedEx shipping label for my two defective sticks, no hassle at all. Everything’s packed up and ready to go. It looks like it’s going to San Diego, so I’m not expecting mine to be out for 4-6 weeks. Maybe 1-2 at max and before the “new batch”, but we’ll see. I’m a dreamer.
As I posted earlier, my SE stick is no longer functioning anymore. I called up GameStop to see if I could exchange mine for another one. On the phone I was told yes (this was yesterday night).
I went in today and apparently GameStop has been told to not do exchanges on this stick anymore but that the individual person has to call up MadCatz and mail it back themselves. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life because they do exchanges on broken Rockband equipment (you just pay a one time $10 fee when buying your first set). Its not even an issue of having items available because there was an SE stick in stock that wasn’t on pre-order, which he was about to give me before the computer let him know he couldn’t. So, because I didn’t want to wait 4-6 weeks for another stick I just tried to return it. However, they can’t take back defective peripherals. :annoy:
All in all, I would like to say: FUCK YOU MADCATZ, YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE IS AWFUL (lol “you can open the stick yourself to fix it”), YOUR PRODUCTS ARE SHIT, YOUR MANUFACTURING IS HORRIBLE, AND YOUR QUALITY ASSURANCE STAFF DOESN’T KNOW WHAT THE WORD ASSURANCE MEANS!
I will never purchase or recommend a MadCatz product to anyone; not even to a scourge like Osama Bin Laden. The frustration/anger/annoyance etc… from the shit in a box they call a gaming peripheral is too horrible to wish upon anyone.
EDIT: Oh by the way, for anyone trying to get a hold of a tech support agent. GOOD LUCK. I called the 1-800 # 4-5 times and it just told me they were busy and I could leave a message…Calling the non-toll-free # gave me a 45 minute wait (sweet 45 minutes of my airtime gone). How the hell does a company like this get the Official Capcom Seal of Approval for making the fight-sticks? Idiots.
Just got my SE stick from Play.com and sure enough its unusable! Stick sticks so bad i dear not touch it, you can hear the grind!!
This is not funny, now i have to void my warrenty even though i want to go searching for a tournament stick tomorrow.
lol guys my se stick cant move left anymore and my strong button including my jab do not work all the time. man this sucks 75 bucks for something that worked 3 days.
That sucks, sorry to hear about your experiences guys.
Call in, Mad Catz will give you free shipping and repair it asap.
That’s all I can say really at this point, I wish I could be more helpful.
Haven’t seen this posted yet but there was an article on 1up with some further Q&A from Verrey…
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3172875
After a read through I’m not too keen on the fact he continues to play down the problem by stating “the number of consumers who have actually contacted us with this issue numbers well under 50 to date,” and “We are aware of a very minor fault affecting a very minor amount of sticks out of several thousand produced.”
In the same article, Verrey says himself that it’s “futile to estimate how many sticks can or may be effected” yet he automatically assumes that it’s such a minute problem for only a few people.
I could really care less about how simple of a fix this may be, or that only 50 people have contacted them with an issue, as truth be told, that tiny little problem is a serious pain in the ass for those of use effected by it. It’s like having cancer and being told “well, most other people don’t have cancer.” Yeah, thanks a lot there. I know we might be in the minority, but you don’t have to repeatedly beat us over the head with the fact it’s so simple and minor. So simple and minor that we could even fix it ourselves (seriously, what kind of customer service is that when you’re given such an option over the phone?)
I think the real problem at hand, at least for me, is the fact I’ll be without a stick for who knows how long on a brand new product that I paid good money for. If they really wanted to win me over they could have offered to put a hold on my CC for the amount of a new stick, overnight me a new one, and then take off the hold once they receive the defective unit back. I spoke with a rep over the phone about something like this and was flat out told no.
Yeah, they’ll fix it for free and pay for shipping if I want to wait a month to get my stick back, but what about going a little above and beyond to try and make things right considering I’m without the product I paid $70 for? I mean seriously, If there’s so few people with the washer problem as Verrey stated, wouldn’t it if have been money ahead for them to have just sent out replacements (like the whole swap thing I was talking about above)?
Rather than having the 1% of people with a problem making a stink online about poor customer service and lacking QA, they could have easily went the extra mile and turned those unhappy folks into some good PR for the company.
Now, I do have another SE stick arriving in the mail tomorrow, but I’m rather uncertain about the whole thing. Even if the new stick did seem to be working properly, there’s still a part of me that’s going to be worried about that washer in there rubbing on the PCB. Hopefully I’ll have one working stick so I’ll have something while I send the other one in. 
I’m gonna be one unhappy camper come tomorrow if my new SE stick shows up and is no better than my current one (sticks badly and won’t register 7 or 1).
This reminds me of the Simpsons episode where the Russian representative in the U.N. flips over his name plate to say U.S.S.R. then tanks start rolling down the street and he laughs because he’s fooled us all.
My SE stick is horrible and getting worse and worse all the time. The buttons have started sticking now (if you hit them anywhere but the very top they go crooked and get stuck).
I tried opening my stick to glue the washer down and everything was hotglued together. (everything, EXCEPT, the fucking washer that needs to be glued.) So i spend 20minutes scraping the glue off everything and by the time i get the stick off of the case i can’t get the mounting place off of the stick because the screws are in so tight and are such horrible quality that they are getting completely stripped instead of coming out even when i use the right size screwdriver.
So not only did the people glue down everything except the 1 thing that actually should be glued down, i cant even get to the washer myself because the hardware is so aweful that the screws wont come out… fuck that. I’m just waiting for my sanwa parts to arrive and im going to never buy a madcatz product again. Epic fail.
Are you within 7 days of purchasing your product? Gamestop’s policy allows returns of items within 7 days. They NEED to honor that. If they changed their policy just so it suited them, whenever they want, that’s a problem. If it’s been more than 7 days then I’m not entirely certain on that policy.
I’d personally call other Gamestops to confirm. Like ask them what their return policy is. They say it’s 7 days. Then tell them you have a defective item (don’t mention it’s the stick) within that policy and ask if you can return. If they say Yes, then you can mention it’s the stick. If they all of a sudden say NO, then you have every right to complain and call corporate.
Hi,
I’m from Australia, and have a SE stick pre-ordered from cdwow.com.au. What should I do in regards to warranty if my stick arrives damaged? Or do you guys think I should just cancel my order and purchase a HRAP3 or something? is it easy to swap the stick in the SE? I have no experience in modding and don’t wanna risk breaking something. I’d rather not mod anything if I don’t have to. There is little choice for sticks here in Australia unfortunately, which is why I pre-ordered this. I went around to so many shops yesterday and no one stocks arcade sticks except one store which had the x-arcade double unit, and said they were bringing in the single ones too. Are these sticks any good? I noticed they had bat tops, which I really don’t like as I’ve always used ball-top sticks. Can the top simply be replaced with a ball one? or do you need to replace the entire stick?
That’s PR for you and those are one of the things I hate about them. This is them not owning up to the issue. There’s many things wrong with what he says, including the things you mentioned.
He also stated these problems only surfaced within 48 hours. Assuming this interview was done on the 18th, or possibly 17th. That means he thinks this all began on the 15th/16th. But people have seen these issues on the 13th, if not before (and I’m sure there’s been way over 50 complaints).
Further more, these issues popped up left and right on the weekend of President’s day, so they couldn’t be reached until Tuesday anyway… which by that time people had to work, go to school, etc and probably didn’t have time to immediately call them about it. So they had 50 calls about it the day after the weekend. Now I’m sure the total has soared since then.
They piss me off…