Why are there no USB arcade sticks?

[onkyo_emu]

I'm aware of X-arcade and SlickStik. I'm also aware of the $$$$ price tags on these things. I'm looking to get a nice usb arcade stick for mame, but I'm not going to be building a full-on mame cabinet for at least a year or two. I don't need 2,3,4 player abilities, so for now a desk or tabletop stick works for me.

 

My real question is this: You can go to BB, CC, CompUsa, or whatever and get a billion gamepads and a billion flight sticks, but no acarde sticks.

 

I'd like to spend around 50 bucks. What I want is something "similar" to the NES advantage, but with more buttons obviously. Xbox has an arcade stick, and NeoGeo is releasing their stick for PS2. Am I going to be stuck buying something like this and using an adapter? Is there no "tabletop" usb arcade sticks out there? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

And I guess it wouldn't HAVE to be USB.

[Dones]

Good question. An option would be buying a console arcade stick for a current console and a USB adapter so you can hook it up to your PC. If you live in the US, Jandaman.com has some USB adapters for PS2, Xbox, Dreamcast, Gamecube and even SNES controllers. RadioShack has some PS2 USB adapters. Ebay and liksang has them too. Some adapters allow you to hook up more than one gamepad, in case you want to play with a friend.

[onkyo_emu]

I was hoping to avoid using an adapter, but oh well.

 

I just can't beleive that no one is making these for the PC.

 

Logitech. . .are you listening?

[Dones]

Check out Sealiecomputing.com. They offer USB-modded console gamepads and USB do-it-yourself kits.

[onkyo_emu]

I've bought tons of stuff from them in the past. I love 'em, but no joy on a quick and easy arcade stick. Why oh why doesn't somebody just make one of these.

 

It's money I'd gladly throw down. Unless I hear something in the next month I guess I'll be picking up a sony arcade stick to go with my PS adapter.

[spacecadet]

I've bought tons of stuff from them in the past.  I love 'em, but no joy on a quick and easy arcade stick.  Why oh why doesn't somebody just make one of these.  

 

Well, they do, you just don't want to pay for it.

 

There's the Sega Virtua Stick, which costs $80-$85 (lik-sang and ncsx.com sell them). There's the X-Arcade, which costs $100. There's the Hanaho Hot Rod, which also costs $100. All of these are USB sticks.

 

You said you wanted to pay $50, but you don't get a good stick for consoles for $50 either, at least not anymore. Certainly not something the level of the X-Arcade. You can get a really cheap, crappy stick for $30, but it's probably not gonna be very satisfying - I have a few of these (including the American Saturn Virtua Stick, which is different than the real Japanese one they make for PC these days) and they're generally just junk.

 

If you think arcade sticks cost too much that's one thing, but you can't say "why doesn't anybody just make one??" There are plenty of them out there, they just cost more than you said you want to pay. So you're either gonna need to pony up the dough, or buy a cheap junk console stick and get an adapter. Those are your options.

[keilbaca]

I agree with the whole paying less than 80 and getting a cheap stick... I regretted buying my stick i got now for 40, for ps2.

[J.Max]

The RealArcade from Pelican isn't too bad, and it has connectors for PS2, Xbox, and GameCube...I think it's $50 from Gamespot...

[Blackjack]

I'm in NO WAY well to do financially but I still put up the $540 for a loaded Slik Stik Classic (that's almost 2 weeks pay for me) and have not regretted a single penny of it! Sometimes you gotta pay dearly for the good stuff, but it's well worth it.

[spacecadet]

The RealArcade from Pelican isn't too bad, and it has connectors for PS2, Xbox, and GameCube...I think it's $50 from Gamespot...

 

I almost was gonna mention this. If I was going to buy a console stick and an adapter, this might be the one I'd go for, especially because I could then use it with all my consoles too.

 

BUT...

 

You said it "isn't too bad", and to me that's different from "good". I've played around with these in a store and was mildly impressed for the price but the stick is still well below the standards of something like the X-Arcade. It's clearly trying to go for that sort of feel but it still feels cheap in comparison, not like it's using real arcade parts.

 

For average people the difference is not dramatic, but I'd rather just spend the extra $50 for an X-Arcade. Or the extra $35 for the Virtua Stick, which has a real arcade feel too, just a Japanese one (this is a personal preference thing; some people like the lighter feel of the Japanese arcade machines and the ball type stick... I like both). Especially when considering you still gotta buy a USB adapter for the RealArcade, which is like another $15-$20, making the price difference even less.

[onkyo_emu]

The Sega Virtua stick is getting close to what I want, but damn. . .those colors!

 

 

I am a FIRM believer in "you get what you pay for". I just want a "decent" stick for very casual gaming. My gamepads and the keyboard just aren't cutting it for most of the Mame stuff I play.

 

I'll keep looking. . .

 

Am I the only one that's suprised there isn't a bigger market for this

[Dones]

How about that arcade stick that came out with Soul Calibur 2? Was it crapola too?

[Jess Ragan]

Having owned one, I can confidently say "yes". The Nuby Soul Calibur II joystick is a mess... it seems to reprogram its buttons at random, and even when you CAN get them to work properly, you have to smash them down to get the system to recognize that they're being pressed. I wound up letting my old manager from work tinker around with the joystick... it wasn't doing me any good, and I couldn't return it.

 

JR

[spacecadet]

How about that arcade stick that came out with Soul Calibur 2? Was it crapola too?

 

The American one, yes, it was junk. The Japanese one, no - it was made by Hori and, like all Hori sticks, was pretty gosh-diddly-arn good.

 

I was shocked that Namco would even lend their name to that Nuby piece of crap. I guess that speaks to the state of not just PC arcade sticks in this country today, but even console arcade sticks. If a better option had been available, I'm sure Namco would have gone with it.

 

The best bet for a "cheap" stick these days is to import one. There are a ton of good Japanese sticks, and they'll work with a USB adapter. But once you pay the markup for the importation, they're not that cheap anymore (like $60 is probably the least you could find one for here, even sticks that sell for $30 in Japan). So it's marginal whether it's worth it or not.

 

The one nice thing about buying a console stick and then getting a USB adapter for it is that you can then use your console gamepads too. I use my PS2 dual shock controller on my PC all the time - except for the super-expensive Logitech wireless controllers, there's no PC gamepad better than this. (btw, I have one of those Logitech controllers... it no longer works. They're more fragile than they look.) So it's not a total waste of money buying a USB adapter.