This is a typical U.S style arcade stick. So Happ Competition stick and buttons and you’re good to go. This was my very first stick mod back in the day. Pretty simple to open up and swap with new parts.
I’d recommend leaving the start/select buttons as stock though. My memory is fuzzy but i recall having a difficult time finding replacement buttons for them and in the end, it wasn’t worth the effort lol. For momentary start/select purposes, you don’t need top-of-the line parts.
Overall, the SF 15th anniversary stick was pretty good as far as U.S sticks go. My only gripe is it was awfully large & chunky. Since then i’ve come to prefer my sticks to be a lot more compact. Although i’ve switched over to Sanwa since, and you really don’t need much weight for a japanese parts stick with their light springs.
The decorative box it came in was really nice also:
Same here ! lol. Anyway, the 15th Anniversary SF stick was pretty damn nice at the time. Kinda miss it. Once it was modded with legit Happ/IL parts, it was about as good as U.S sticks get also.
It’s a sweet deal actually if one, or both, of the sticks are still in great shape. This is an excellent stick/case to have for those that still enjoy gaming on U.S style parts.
I bought one a few years back (supposedly new…hard to tell for certain as the box was pretty beat up…but the stick itself looked new enough) of amazon or ebay and heavily modded it to replace my old modded X-Arcade as my US style stick. Put an MC Cthulhu board in it, some IL buttons and an IL stick (initially a Super stick as I liked the feel of that stick but I eventually decided to pop in a Eurostick/Comp I had lying around and I liked that better). I drilled holes for pinball buttons on the side, holes in the back for a couple buttons and a hole in the top for a start button (I also ordered a plexiglass pane for it from Art to cover up the original small holes). It turned out pretty well and I’m very happy with its final state!
Def good cases if your into American hardware. Did a simple IL button/stick swap, put ps3 Cthulhu in there, nothing fancy. Putting this up for sale this week due to me not seeing myself playing on american hardware unless i have to at some barcade.
Just note you will have to use different qds on the IL/HAPP buttons since the stock buttons use .110 qds
I have 2 of these with the boxes and posters. One I bought around the time of release for $60 & the other latter on for $20, both new.
I used the first with stock parts for SF Anniversary collection (mainly 3rd Strike on Xbox). This is before I learned of the FGC/competitive scene.
They’ve been in the box, on the shelf as it were, because I use MCZ sticks, but I’ve always thought about modding them.
TL:DR Are they better off as is, in terms of collector’s items?
They’re too clunky for me to use, though they’d be Kool to implement in a custom arcade cabinet project.
In terms of collector’s items the only crowd that would probably have a strong desire to obtain one of these is someone in the 30+ age group who can actually remember when arcades were abundant in the US.
I’m happy i found this thread. I’ve been holding on to a couple of these sticks for a long while for a dream modding project. Problem is, i dont know where to start. For starters, I want to change the art, the buttons, the stick, and even possibly the location of the start and select buttons.
Aside from the sticks themselves, i have nothing
If anyone with experience working on these sticks could give me a few starting tips, they would be much appreciated
Uhh…unfortunately this stick is made of very cheap materials.
For example, the bottom plastics usually fall out out over time. The case is made of very cheap MDF. Once you remove the t-moldings, it never goes back in the same way. Removing the moldings is the only way to remove the artwork/plexi. The best thing this thing had going for it at the time was the xbox/psx compatibility. If you just unscrew the bottom cover, you can see how everything is hooked up. It is a fairly easy stick to work on, but the quality really affects the fit and finish. I have one in storage that I can’t even sell lol.
And for the record, we still have arcades. They’ve just changed their typical location. The Laser Tag places! That’s the arcade of the new millennium or whatever.
If you have an appreciation for old-school lightgun shooters, you need to play this one. A couple of times a week i go to my local laser tag and play-through this gem: (2014)Alien Armageddon.
Of course i bring this game up because i never knew it existed until i visited a laser tag arcade. And to date, the only other place i’ve EVER seen these machines pop up is at other laser tag places lol.
I feel as if either you or some one you know can work with wood. You could easily make a replica of this stick. As a previous poster said the materials are not well made for this stick and I love happ buttons but I prefer the Korean joystick over the IL’s
It was an okay starter stick for me back in 2004 before I had a good enough job to spend the money on ebay and get a HRAP. Those were the good old days when you couldn’t go to your local GameStop and buy a decent stick.
i know what you mean, i couldnt afford a hrap and japanese parts were expensive. i forgot the sfac was the cheapeast happ stick you could buy back then
