What the hell! I had no idea such a thing existed!!! I’m a big joystick fan, and finding this joystick for one of my favourite consoles of all time is such a pleasant surprise. Looks pretty sexy.
I’ve tried searching the Tech Talk forums a couple of times, but the search seems to be broken for me at the moment; and all I get is a blank page.
The fact that it’s got Astro on it, suggests that it is a direct clone of it’s Astro City cabinet counterpart, and thus does have Sanwa parts. An arcade stick with Sanwa parts and japanese cabinet layout for a console that came out in 1994 is just unheard of!
If anyone can confirm this, that’d be great. If not, then does anyone know if it’s easily moddable?
While newer Sega cabs does come with Sanwa parts, Astro City and older however actually came with Seimitsu. Thus the Virtua Stick Pro left the factory with Seimitsu LS-32 joysticks but unfortunately only generic crap buttons, soldered directly to a sub-PCB but still quite easily replaceable (holes doesn’t need to be modified or anything). I still have the bottom part from one of these which I intend to fit with a regular six buttons per player panel and turn into a supergun.
Actually the panel itself does need a BIT of modifying to get the buttons in. The stock VSP panel has small tabs on the buttons. You can easily change the joystick to a Sanwa JLF as long as you have/get an s-shaped mounting plate. I have 3 of these myself (had 4 but sold one).
As Mayhem has stated, they are LS-32 sticks and generic stock buttons. They are overall easy to mod. I’m doing a bit of heavy modding to one of mine so I’ve been a bit lazy about getting it done.
The price is high including shipping but that’s expected since it’s a UK auction. Obviously that’s not a problem for you Cheesey since you’re in London.
I think it’s a GREAT stick. Probably the favorite of my collection.
How is the button mod anyway? Now, I’m not a super experienced person when it comes to soldering in general, so I just want to get that out of the way right now.
Thinking about swapping the stock Sega buttons for Seimitsus.
Also was wondering for a possible Supergun mod although I kinda don’t want to gut the Saturn PCB part out of there since the stick is pretty much a relic to me now. Also I still use it for Vampire Savior every now and then.
Plenty of them available on Yahoo, just takes a little patience to score a bargain. I bought mine at 15K JPY including a Sega Saturn and a load of games, after selling everything but the stick the net price was pretty darn cheap…!
They are probably both from the same manufacturer, only this one hasn’t got Sega’s seal of approval on it so is a fraction of the price. Good modding potential though I reckon!
Uh, don’t compare that crappy panel to the Virtua Stick Pro, the Virtua Stick Pro was pretty much ripped out of an Astro City cab. Save for the buttons, the stick is the highest of the class when it comes to console arcade sticks.
I’ve always have contemplated getting one of those and swapping in some PSX PCBs with some sanwa buttons, since there’s no Saturn to PS2 converter. Great stick I can imagine, but meh, for those prices though, you could just spend a couple hundred more and get a full blown candy cab.
Note: Anyone thinking of modding one to PS2 sticks and selling one…I’m definitely up for buying.
