yall are scaring me…
just bought 2 of these…i’ll try out the ps3 version today…and tryout the 360 version when i comeback from my trip…
I agree that mst people wont bother to rma a joystick, either its time consuming or they have to spend more money on the shipping. I don’t expect a 69 joystick to have the same quality of a arcade machine, i only expect it to be a working and funtional unit.
Capital conceit is not an excuse of poor QC. MC is trying to give their company a better image through this product. If a customer brought a half working unit, you think they will go back and buy another item from them again? Most electronic factories in china do have a decent sized QC department. And hiring a team of them doesnt cost them an arm and a leg. MY suggestion is that they need to put a qc sticker on the unit with the id whoever inspected it.
I agree that mst people wont bother to rma a joystick, either its time consuming or they have to spend more money on the shipping. But when i buy a $69 joystick i expect it to be a working and funtional unit.
Capital conceit is not an excuse of poor QC. MC is trying to give their company a better image through this product. If a customer brought a half working unit, you think they will go back and buy another item from them again? Most electronic factories in china do have a decent sized QC department. And hiring a team of them doesnt cost them an arm and a leg. MY suggestion is that they need to put a qc sticker on the unit with the id whoever inspected it.
Swapping out your joystick will fix the sticking/catching issue. However it wont necessarily fix the other issues such as directional inputs not registering. That could be a problem with the connection, between the stick and the main PCB, it could be a problem with the PCB itself. Or… It could be that the washer on the stick already scratched away the inlays on the PCB. Hard to know.
If you have buttons that arent working it could either be a problem with the mad catz buttons, a problem with the connections/wiring, or a problem with the PCB.
If you dont mind voiding the warranty on your stick you can test the PCB by taking a button that you know works, and connecting that buttons wires to different points on the PCB. That way you can be sure that the PCB is working correctly. I’m no pro, but i think that would work. Someone who knows what they are talking about can correct me if im wrong. lol.
Just keep in mind, most of the people going home and playing with their joysticks aren’t going to come in here and say “Hey, my joystick freakin rules. It works perfectly. Just wanted to let you guys know.”
If someone is going online to post. typically it’s because something is busted. Keep that in perspective before completely raining on Mad Catz parade. My controller is pretty damn sweet at the moment. I’m even thinking of keeping it stock until something breaks on it. I’m that comfortable with its performance to not need to upgrade right off the bat.
Sorry to hear your joysticks have issues, and I’d hate to say you might be in the minority, but this isn’t the first time a forum will see a small influx of people with issues… but really, think about just how many people are buying these and playing with them right now with no problems. Report them as they come, but hold off on burning MC at the stake just yet.
Posted a thread on this earlier before realizing there already was one, I’ll just post what I posted there:
Problem A: I decided to void my warranty immediately just to see what it looked like on the inside, and to check out the quick disconnects, maybe pop out a couple buttons and switch the location of the black ones to MP+MK. First off, when you pop out the buttons with the aid of a screw driver, the snappy tabs don’t seem to return to their original state. I had to use a butter knife to physically pull them back out, otherwise the buttons wouldn’t snap in ever again. I was seriously afraid that they’d break off, but thankfully I got all the tabs back out. I’d say that if you got or are getting the SE stick, don’t pop the buttons out until you’re replacing them – these parts are pretty shoddy.
Problem B: I also wanted to shift the actual button function over to the right one row, so ABXY would be in the center 4, and left bumper/trigger would actually be on the left. when pulling out the connector for my medium punch, the entire microswitch for that button broke in half. the ball-bearing and spring shot out, and I cemented it back together, but now the button is obviously sticky because well…that’s rubber cement after all. So I just left the pins unplugged on that button, and moved it over to the far left since I don’t use those two anyway. Another reason to totally not take those buttons out.
Problem C: The stick. It’s been said before, but the spring tension is overly loose, and the stick itself is very stiff. The problem with that is that sometimes my stick will get stuck slightly in down-right position, or up – so Ken in HD Remix will just jump forever. I made a video of this and will be posting it online eventually. Even with all these problems though, I’m still happy I have what I have over a 360 controller. Guess it’ll have to do until I get my parts shipped.
Doesnt seem like there is much you can do now except order new buttons and a new stick and replace the crappy madcatz ones. I’d watch out for the glue around your new buttons and stuff though, you dont want that stuff to get inside your new buttons and jam them up or make them sticky.
This is very true. I’m glad to hear some people are getting good ones.
Okay, thanks a lot.
The inner screws on the mounting plate are next to impossible.
Found a bit that fits, but two screws broke on the way out, AWESOME! Now my joystick is more than just stuck, it’s broke. Just put in an order for sanwa buttons/stick on lizardlick. Sigh.
If your sticks are sticking at all, return it or do the washer/glue fix.
If you keep using it, it’ll eat through the contacts on your joystick’s pcb.
The stick doesn’t have to be getting stuck all the time for the washer to rise and scratch the board, it’ll happen even if you don’t feel it sticking all the time. That is, IF your washer isn’t secure.
yesterday I pick up an SE to tide me over. Get it home only to find out the turbo module and two bottom right buttons were DOA.
I returned it and got a refund, I also kept the character card.
So that means that there is a small chance that all the FightSticks have faulty washers and that all sticks will have PCB errors in lets say, a week? Ugh, you don’t even know if your washer is secure without opening it up. This is worrying me. If this’ll happen to me, do I just have to keep turning in my stick at my gameshop untill I get one out of a batch with secure washers, or sent it to Madcatz paying shipping costs and waiting for weeks? D:
Let’s just assume that only a couple of sticks have faulty washers, for our poor little hearts.
No, I’m pretty sure it’s more than a couple. I went through three sticks already and they all stick. All I know is I am not paying any fucking shipping for MadCatz own mistake. They can go screw themselves with this piece of shit.
I tried returning mine, but I got boned by gamestop. I returned it, but I couldn’t get a new one, so I’m stuck waiting til April to get a tournament edition stick. Fucking awesome.
If the problems are really as widespread as they seem to be, let’s hope Madcatz will fix these problems in the upcoming batches. Or try to set-up some free turn-in with retailers, turning in your feb. sticks for march/april sticks or something…
Ah, who am I kidding.
Hearing about all these defects is starting to worry me. My budget is extremely limited, I just can’t afford to blow 80 bucks on a defective stick. The stick and the game are pretty much the entirety of my gaming budget for the next 6 to 9 months, am i better off canceling my pre-order and saving up for that 129.99 hori? I was hoping to have a stick for launch but if it’s gonna end up breaking on me and i’ll be without it anyway it might be worth waiting.
I would say yes, as of right now all first generation SE sticks have built in defaults. If you are confident with your modding abilities, and you open it up (void the warranty) and do the fix yourself (which I believe is only temporary).
I have a question. Let’s say I get the SE stick next week and I use it for like 1-2weeks until I get my Sanwa parts. Can there be any permanent damage caused by the washer that won’t be fixed once I switch in the Sanwa parts? And if so what can be done?
I had the same thing happen to me last night on my SE as well, but it was both triggers (tested them in the options menu). After unplugging it and plugging it back in everything was fine.
Until today.
Turned on my Xbox, and while it was at the dashboard, it selecting menu’s automatically. After pressing B to go back out and start up HDR, the A button doesn’t work. (Couldn’t even get pass the main menu screen on HDR)
checking all buttons including the turbo button (with the killswitch turned off) and the turbo lights are not coming on either. It’s a little disheartening, mainly because I bought the stick for a friend and was going to tell him how it works.
I’ll try to see if I can’t get a different one from gamestop today. If not then i’ll be getting my money back.
I just hope that the TE stick doesn’t have the same problems (getting mine on Tuesday hopefully)