Does this mean, new SEs with upgraded parts for the PS3/X360 in time for SSFIV?
played a couple hours on the stock parts and the stick felt pretty loose. so i went ahead and switched out the stick and buttons to sanwa. mostly because i had enough spare sanwa stuff laying around. this is my first se everything is real easy to modify
the stick is good stuff. i want to dual mod it to work on the 360 as well as wii. is this possible?
Just wanted to say I love the stick Markman if your reading this. The little touches like the srk motions on the dust washer and the shaft protector and the overall quality of the new parts you guys made all make the stick awesome.
<3 madcatz
Did anyone get this stick to co-exist with a gamecube controller in TvC? I modded my TE stick with a MC Cthulhu and the game won’t let me select versus mode with both the TvC stick and the TE stick plugged in.
edit: forgot to say they work fine individually.
Looks like I found my answer.
Hello.
Hey MarkMan,
Are the sticks selling well enough for Mad Catz to bring to market a TE TvC stick?
I have yet to get my hands on TvC because ups has temporarily misplaced my package, but so far I really like the stick. Everything feels solid, and while I’m happy that these sticks are pretty simple for modding if I want to go that route, I’m happy with the stock parts for now. Tried them out on Streets of Rage 3 and Final Fight 3 and the stick performed well.
We have no plays for a Tournament Edition stick for Wii at this time.
I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon.
Wii is a mass-market system marketed to people who generally aren’t fighting game fans. There are also tons more fighting games on both the XBox 360 and PS3!
Remember, Wii is generally owned by people who are into simple games and party games that don’t require a bunch of complex inputs and the kind of coordinated stick-button pressing motions that a lot of fighting games do. They’re more into buying add-ons for motion controllers and balance boards instead of $130-$150 fighting sticks.
Yeah…
That last part mystifies me too! It’s not as if a fighting stick ends up being much more than the 3 or 4 add-ons Nintendo and third-party Wii vendors want you to buy for the Wii-mote!
I guess Mad Catz felt $80 was about the limit most Wii owners would spring for a quality joystick…?
Excepting overstock on HRAP’s I just don’t see how you can sell a stick with authentic Japanese parts for much less than that and still make a profit.
The TvC stick is good, but I still prefer playing TvC on my modded TE stick with a MC Cthulhu. I got the TvC stick because some Wii/Virtual Console games do not support gamecube connection.
I really need to get this stick. I purchased TvC today and saw the stick and wished I had the money to get both. Glad to read opinions that this is a good stick and plays well from experienced stick users, I’m extremely novice in the stick department. Hopefully I can get myself one soon.
Personally, I’d be all for it if MadCatz released limited edition version of this with all Sanwa parts (an Arcade FightStick TvC-SA if you will).
The T Vs C has got to be much better than the Wii Fight Stick!
I’ve got a Wii Fight Stick and until recently it was the hardest stick I’ve ever had to mod. It was a bear to get the Sanwa JLF parts to fit in the thing and it just doesn’t have a lot of built-in space for mods.
(The DC Arcade Stick is technically a harder mod job – more plastic to cut and harder to rule and file the thing to fit a new joystick – but much more worth it in my opinion. Good case, higher-quality build IMHO, and plenty of space for better parts and alternate PCBs. The lower-end Hori Fight Sticks just are not that forgiving.)
Seriously, it’s an overrated stick and not worth it even on-sale.
On the other hand, if you can get a modded Wii Fight Stick for less than the T Vs C, go for it!
Other than that, if you’re into customizing a stick and lack a Dremel files, and cutting tools, get the T Vs C. It was built to be used as-is or modded with better parts.
Don’t be a brand loyalist… buy the better-built stick, period!
i donot think so
Uh… what exactly is this referring to?
MadCatzunoko vs. Sanwa Showdown
I picked up a TvC stick yesterday and played with it a bit. I really like the matte control panel label on the stick itself. If you’ve been lucky enough to play on a naked arcade control panel without any plexiglass protecting it, this is what it feels like, and it’s nice. Seems like a Lexan label (polycarbonate)? If this is the same stuff mamemarquees is using for their prints I may be making an order soon…
There’ve been a lot of general impressions posted so I’m going to mostly focus on the stick and buttons. This is really more of a review of the new MadCatz Sanwa clone components.
The Buttons
The buttons are Sanwa OBSF-30 clones. They’re more of a neutral white than the Sanwas. The button casings are virtually identical with a couple differences.
- MC buttons have little cutouts on the bottom of the button casings
- MC buttons have slightly less material on the nubs directly underneath the rim
The cutouts are pretty much irrelevant, though they may make button presses slightly louder. This is sort of like the difference in sound between screw-ins and snap-ins, where the sound of screw-ins is a little more muffled.
The new casings are branded with the MadCatz logo.
With the switches disassembled, we can see the primary difference between the two is the size of the spring. MadCatz has a similar but longer spring inside the switch. The functional pieces of the casing are essentially identical, as are the steel balls. Aside of the gold connectors the fundamental difference is the spring, and this is what lends the MadCatz button to have a slightly stiffer feel than the Sanwa.
Note the difference in alignment in the contacts. Sanwa seems to manufacture with a pretty low error tolerance and the contacts are virtually always very well-aligned. The MadCatz variants are sometimes slightly off, though this seems to make no noticeable difference in the behavior of the switch.
The little piece in the switch plunger that holds the spring in place is situated a little differently between the two; the MadCatz has it centered in the center of the spring hole, while the Sanwa has it off-center of the hole, which actually puts it closer to the center of the switch. This isn’t due to difference in camera angle, they’re actually like this.
After seeing the insides of these switches, it should come as very little surprise that when I swapped only the springs between the MadCatz and Sanwa and reassembled the buttons, the MadCatz button felt like a Sanwa and vice-versa.
The Joystick
The joystick is a Sanwa JLF clone. MarkMan posted previously that they were unable to get rights to the Sanwa TP-MA PCB/switch assembly that the JLF uses, so MadCatz built their own using similar (the same?) Omron microswitches and a compatible connector.
The gates appear to be functionally identical; the 8-way/4-way selector in the center is also the same. Since the casings and components of the two sticks are so similar, pretty much anything from the JLF should be able to be used as a replacement.
I accidentally swapped left and right in a couple of these pix, but they are labeled correctly.
The spacing between the actuator and microswitches (the “dead zone”) seems the same.
The microswitch contacts look decentered here due to the way they are wired to the PCB; when the stick is assembled they are firmly centered.
The D3V-16-3A5 microswitch up close.
The shafts have the same dimensions; the slot at the bottom used to unscrew the balltop is deeper on the Sanwa.
Again we get to the important difference between the two sticks, and the one that makes the biggest difference in the way the stick feels and operates: the spring. This is again a little longer in the MadCatz part with its extra coil, which creates some extra stiffness. Those who dislike the looseness of the JLF may like this, and those who feel their TvC stick is too stiff have an easy option: replace the spring with its JLF equivalent. Is your shaft stiff enough? 
As for the actuators, they appear almost identical; my MadCatz sample is slightly tighter around the shaft (either shaft, they are the same). The bit that actually actuates the microswitches seems to be the same size.
The spring covers are the same. The MadCatz stick came with an over-generous application of grease, which is what you see here and all over the shaft, actuator, spring, enclosure, PCB, washer, etc.
So what’s the upshot of all this? The stick feels like a stiffer JLF. The buttons feel like stiffer Sanwas. If you could get an individual pack of springs for the switches, in theory you could ‘upgrade’ to Sanwa for a few bucks and some spare time. But if a JLF and Sanwa buttons that are a little stiffer than normal are more to your liking, you may as well keep what it comes with.
Good shit MadCatz! Hopefully we see these components in future sticks (new SE for Super?). 
Please post or PM me any corrections.
wow, you broke that shit down… 
The Mad Catz Buttons look cool this time.
The old ones had easier access though, and you just twist.
When I saw those extra holes on bottom of Button, I had idea of LED.
But then those won’t work.
Because the only Clear Plungers that would fit in would be the old Sanwa OBSC-30 or Seimitsu PS-14-K.
Plunger from Seimitsu PS-14-KN would not do.
Here you see why.
http://akihabarashop.jp/misc/Changeplunger.jpg
The slot for Microswitch Actuator does not match.
PS-14-KN is 90 turned.
PS-14-KN is thinner.
Why then, use PS-14-KN Microswitch in the Button?
No work.
Microswitch of PS-14-KN is bigger than standard Sanwa.
Microswitch of PS-14-KN is same size as Microswitch in Sanwa OBSF-30RG, OBSN-30RG.
I’m just getting off tangent now.
Thank you for your comparison.
I do want to buy a Mad Catz TvC fightStick.