Street fighter 30th Anniversary accommodates flippable ambidextrous joysticks

Tech Talk
1

Looking at the options, I can see you can reassign up, down, left, and right. This means, if you have a symmetic standard fight stick, you can turn it into a symmetric “Sinister Stick”.

Now someone needs to finish the job with a symmetric flippable stick for the Xbox One, Switch, and PS4.

Most off-the-shelf joysticks frown at you normally to accommodate the fact that the middle finger is longest and fingers get shorter as you move away from center.

Turning an off-the-shelf joystick 180 degrees makes the joystick smile at you, which makes for awkward positioning of your fingers.

But Kudos in the first step, Capcom for opening up the possibility for off-the-shelf flippable sticks. At Least Street Fighter Anniversary will be compatible without opening and rewiring the joystick.

But if you want to play older versions for older systems, you still need a rewired stick. Luckily the 15th anniversary stick for the PS2/Original Xbox is easily flippable and can be compatible with every system from the NES, Master System, and 7800 to the Switch, PS4, and Xbox One, if you buy PS2-> other system adapters. By the way the PS2 has the most systems either directly or indirectly usable with it. And one version of the SF15 rates high on compatibility lists for many adapters, and I think I have it. Haven’t found a failure yet.

2

The Xbox One operating system already does this, as long as you’re using the cross pad as the primary directional controller. It’s just frustrating to flip it back and forth for pad games. It would be nice if the Xbox One had individual game settings so fight stick games can be flipped automatically and designated to certain titlesthat are better with fight sticks, including fighters, but not just fighters exclusively.

3

You’d need to make the stick custom in order to have symmetrical buttons, so why not go the extra mile and just add multi-pole double-throw switches in so that you don’t have to fiddle with options to swap layouts?
Just flip a switch or two and there you go.

4

I know how to design a fight stick that is ambidextrous and flippable if you visit 56ok.org/Ambidextrous/index.htm to see a more contoured version of an 8-button fight stick. the unused button can be the ninth “taunt” button assuming there is a 3P and 3K button on home consoles in certain Playstation versions. I’m thinking of using a DB25 connector where one wire equals one signal, have one on each end, one wired for right handed and one left handed.

My point is that with the Xbox being customizable in the OS menu, and Street Fighter Anniversary having joystick flipping options in its OWN option menu, Capcom and others might be warming up to the idea of an ambidextrous flippable fight/old-school arcade joystick.

It’s much more a fundamental difference in sticks than in pads. Pads are more symmetric with thumbs and index fingers on both sides having similar motions, typing. You type two handed on a computer keyboard, right? Left and right pretty symmertic? Joysticks are not symmetric, one side has elbow/wrist motion and the other has a typing motion.

That’s why right handed sticks are more of a big deal than right handed pads for a more broad market than just the handicapped.

5

@tripletopper
I’m genuinely curious, so maybe you can clear it up for me.

I notice that you post a lot about ambidextrous solutions, but I haven’t been able to pinpoint what your end-goal is specifically. You post about designs for ambidextrous custom sticks, the possibility of using the SF Anniversary stick, and even software-based inversions. But I don’t recall you ever posting anything along the lines of “Hey guys, I’m trying to build/get an ambidextrous solution for my fighting game situation because of reason XYZ”, and most of your posts regarding this topic seem to be along the lines of “Here are X possibilities of an ambidextrous solution.”

That being said, I’m going to assume that you’re looking to a versatile all-in-one ambidextrous stick solution.

  1. A custom stick is the way to go, but you knew that already.
  2. You seem to want to have support for all platforms (including legacy systems), so converters or project boxes are the way to go, but you knew that already as well.
  3. While you mentioned a couple of software-based solutions (Xbox One config and SF 30th), I wouldn’t really consider it that companies are “warming up” to the idea. It could very well be the case, but can you really rely on that gamble? Plus, you’re never going to see that sort of support for the old platforms anyways.
    The more surefire solution would be as @kedawa mentioned, to have your stick configurable via a set of switches, regardless of the offerings of the platform or the software. Remember, the Xbox One controller config settings are done at the OS level, so it’s not something that you’d be able to conveniently reconfigure on the fly at casuals or anywhere people would be switching controllers all the time and stuff.

On a semi-related topic, I thought about updating my ABS Modular joystick to be able to accommodate for right-side joysticks, but I’d have to redesign a bunch of things to allow the joystick panels to mount/connect on the right side, and the button panels to connect on the left. Maybe one of these days I’ll make a new ABS Modular stick to accommodate for things I didn’t account for before.

6

The reason XYZ of why I want an Ambidextrous stick? read this 2 website (ful disclosure, I’m the author and owner of the website)

56ok.org/Ambidextrous/index.htm

On that page on the left side are 6 links in red. One is a general description of the project I have show some custom builders, the second link is particular pitfalls I notice when trying to get one and a way I found that can be overcome, third is the sales pitch for someone who wants to mass market them, the fourth is the history of handedness and how we are where we are today, the fifth is the performance enhancing abilities of this controller, and the 6th link reveals the identity who I beat before he became famous, and he was a great player in high school and before too, and even though he’s a Jack of All Games, the somewhat specializes in fighting. He’s not number 1 in fighting in the world, but fighting is the biggest course in his 8 course meal of video gaming skills.

And the fact he was using a Genesis 6 button pad back then and it was rare to buy a custom joystick for the Sega Genesis, so this lets you take notice. If this would have failed, I wouldn’t have heard the end of it, especially if the joystick broke in 2 weeks, like it actually did.

But not only I, but all our other common friends beating him shows the point I’m advertising in the first place, that the right joystick can help your performance, just that the identity of this friend sells the idea that the right stick can help you, because if multiple people can beat a known gaming community member when he was on pad and they were on right stick (only some could beat him with left stick, but everyone beat him with right stick), that would give this concept some gravitas.

I’m even trying to get his endorsement, so I but MANY caveats, like he never thought a joystick would help, and it was rare to want a custom joystick in that day. (remember the joysticks and pads were not analog in the Genesis days, so an off-the-shelf stick or pad was good enough for most people.) But I saw this problem back in the NES days. He was shocked that not only I beat him and every one of our friends, but that our other common friends beat this expert. And he was cockily saying there’s no way the right handed joystick could be the difference, and everyone else beat him. I even gave him an excuse that, when he remember playign Street Fighter Iv on the Xbox 360, there’s going to be other people like me, looking for that online advantage, and to climb the leaderboards, he needs every advantage he can get. He didn’t win Life to the Popwer of X yet, so he was just a pro-wannabe, a very naturally gifted pro-wannabe, but a pro-wannabe none the less. Hd found a tournament where he won, where the only thing known about the games are it’s multiple games on an Original Xbox, and once the game is announced, you have no time to practice it. It’s about natural all-around abilities.

Yes, for old consoles, and to be independent of these features, custom stick and adapters are the way to go. I was just saying, joysticks from now on can be designed to accommodate the flip. At least from here to the future.

Even though I severely doubt it because these companies want to sell you the same stuff over again for newer systems as opposed to going back, but, maybe the Switch joystick can have limited run Switch-to-other-older-Nintendo-system adapters, Sony can have PS4-to PS3/2/1 adapters, Microsoft can have Xbox One-to-360/Prime adapters, and Atari, Sega, and the others can piggyback on whatever company they want with adapters that work for that family, and you cover the past.

But even if they did authorize retro adapters, they don’t do warrantee work on these old consoles anyway, even if you used only then-and-now authorized parts. So it’s like their warrantees have lost all their teeth. So go ahead, Use that Beeshu joystick for a real NES, (but games with left- and right-action specific functions like Tutankham, Sidearms, and Pac-Land would be reversed from the optimal setup, thankfully that’s less than 5% of games). Nintendo is going to repair an NES today just as easily and cheaply whether you use a Beeshu or not, and that is not at all. If something goes wrong, you either have to repair it yourself, or hire someone who can.

I believe the number 1 reason why the joysticks are now left handed is NINTENDO. (but it doesn’t help right handed players that Sega messed up their right handed stick with “middle finger pumping” instead of index finger rapid fire on the main button.) And the reason why Nintendo went lefty on the most influential game, Donkey Kong, was because Donkey Kong was using recycled Radarscope machines, and they were left handed, thinking rapid fire should have your main control (fire button for a shooter) on the right hand. It didn’t hurt that it shortened play times at the arcade, who make money by the credit, shorter credits=more money. Anecdotally, most of the people who got 6 digit scores I saw back in the day crossed their wrists, and I saw them about 4 times, all of them crossed.

Some people were never exposed to games before the NES and think I’m a crybaby. Beeshu had ambidextrous joysticks authorized for the Turbo Grafx 16 and Genesis, so they are not about skimping on the bucks. But Nintendo never authorized them, basically mandating the lefty style. For people 40 and older, this is personal.

7

A friend of mine loves Robotron 2064 and with that in mind he made a stick with 2 joysticks and in between the 6 button US style, all Happs IL (done quite a while ago). Really cool looking stick, this topic remind me of it, although the second stick was routed to the 4 face buttons on a pad, you could still use this to share lines with a joystick and face buttons via switches, or dip switches if you will. Just a thought, cool device if you’re a twin stick shooter hound that likes fighting games.

8

It might be cheaper to add an extra set of buttons rather than an extra stick, but that sounds like a cool setup.

I grew up playing computer games with a joystick in my right hand, and arcade games with a joystick in my left hand, and I learned to play FPS games both ways on N64.
It doesn’t seem like an advantage to me one way or the other, but I think I could get used to a right hand stick pretty easily.

9

I was contemplating a separate twin stick set up with buttons in the middle, I notice at a certain distance and angle a symmetric frown would fit equally well the right and left hand and having 2 joysticks on opposite sides. Yes, A Robotron setup is more practical than 8 buttons on both sides. Plus in Super Smash Bros, you can use the non-main stick as a “Smash Stick”, just move your hand from the button area to the smash stick.

But that’s why you get it custom made, so that it contours to your hand.

But a 15 degree down from straight vertical accommodates a symmetric 8 button frown (at least for me). With the ring and middle being horizontal and the pinky and index being vertically even it’s an easy ambidextrous arrangement, and at the right spacing feels comfortable. But the buttons have to be swapped for both left/right hand horizontally. Plus for games like Tutankham, Side Arms and Pac Land, you need to flip 2 buttons again horizontally so left is left and right is right, not index is index and middle is middle.

10

Do you set up the buttons mirrored as well? Like if you play Street Fighter, are the weak attacks on the right buttons instead of the left?

11

An Index-to-index mapping is preferred in most games, so I do have it mirrored horizontally. But there are at least 3 classic games I know of where THAT mapping would be backwards. Pac-Land, Side Arms, and Tutankham have obvious left fire/left run and right fire/right run buttons. So the Beeshu TurboGrafx joystick buttons are backwards for those games when played right handed. (even though Tutankham is a Colecovision game based off a Konami arcade game and left and right buttons are maintained on a standard Coleco controller when held in either hand.)

So therefore I plan to use a One-wire-equals-one-signal setup, like a DB25. Then I just reroute the wires using a 3.5 mm cable hookup, like telephone operator cables.

Ironically, the Sega Master System joystick was right handed, even though the pad was left handed… The problem with it is that you’re doing “middle-finger pumping” when it’s obvious that on most Master System games, the concept of main fire and aux fire is WAY more used than a Left and Right fire method. I think NO master system game has a left- and right- fire and all have a main fire and aux fire. It mapped left-to-left not index-to-index. (Correct me if I’m wrong. Are there any Master System games with a concept of left and right action, as opposed to main and aux action? If so the Master System joystick would work perfect for it.)

I can see this is a problem, and came up with a solution. I’m not saying it’s a novel solution, or I came up with it first, but I came up with it independently. But I personally felt it both ways,using the SMS joystick, and Beeeshu TG16 stick, and am looking to correct it as needed. I even have a Beeshu SMS joystick which maps like the Beeshu TG16 joystick in other words index-to-index.