I had a bunch of sega saturn controllers both new and used that have all since broke in one way or another. I dont play enough to invest time into an arcade stick and I am a solid player with the saturn pads.
So my question is if the existing ones on ebay (not many now a days 
) are any good? Heres an example
NEW WHITE PC MAC USB CONTROLLER FOR SEGA SATURN | eBay
Thanks in advance
I donât think it would be very good. There used to be a bunch you could find on ebay{actual, not knockoff}, but not anymore(I just checked).
Get one of these two converters and you can use real Saturn-pads lagfree on PS3 (and PC): âPC Magic Box USBâ or â3-in-1 PC Joy Boxâ
The converters are hard to find but cost less than 20$. Real Saturn-pads also cost less than 20$.
I bought a cheap one from eBay (probably knockoff) about a year-and-a-half ago, and it seems to work absolutely fine. No dropped inputs, and still working.
I donât understand why people worship the saturn pad. I played SFA on my friendâs saturn when we were younger, and even now, Iâm still barely able to do supers on it. But then again, I guess his pads might be in in really bad shape.
There are two (official Sega) types of Saturn pads.
Maybe your friend has this version:
http://i52.tinypic.com/308dykl.jpg
That pad sucks.
This is the good Saturn pad (Japanese âtype 2â Saturn controller):
I have the 3-in-1 PC Joy Box thingie supports duarlshock, saturn, etc. very good converter.
Anyway, donât expect these knockoffs to last a long time. I have like 4 of those Saturn USB pads and 2 of them stopped working. The knockoff versions just donât last long, inputs becoming harder to press in order to get commands to come out. Sometimes the D-Pad gets stuck awkwardly during complex motions, if youâre gonna buy one might as well buy another. The oneâs with the all black coloring buttons are generally fake, watchout for those. I have one in my closet and it doesnât work at all.
I have one of these knockoffs. I wouldnât get one, not even for $15~. They just feel very cheap and the D-pads feel inaccurate to me. The whole thing feels like a cheap plastic toy. However, I havenât had much experience with an official Saturn pad so I canât offer a comparison, only that Iâve enjoyed over pads far more and regret mine.
Interestingly enough it came from an official Sega source, PlaySega. I guess even they thought it would be cheaper to sell/give away the knockoffs.
I never liked the Japanese Saturn pad myself. The d-pad always felt cheap to me. Then again, I never liked the 6-button Genesis pad either and it used the same d-pad. Itâs miles better than anything else on the PC, though.
The only good Saturn pads Iâve played with have been the ones Sega made for the Saturn itself and the PS2.
The others have been third-party manufactured and NONE of them has held up as well as original Sega-manufacture pads.
Iâve got two of the âofficialâ USB pads and will say without reservations that the D-pads and buttons donât register as cleanly and crisply as the original Japanese pads. Theyâre decent pads as-is but still not as good as the originals and the PS2 versions.
Of course, the remaining stock of pads is dwindling as people break them through normal use, abuse them, or scavenge them for stick parts.
Wish Sega was still in the hardware business for controllers but nowadays their focus seems to be squeezing the last bit of money from the nostalgia crowd that loves Sonic. Donât know what happened to that company, but they seem to have genuinely stopped caring about a lot of quality issues after the Dreamcast diedâŚ
Just wanted to ad that the latest batch of âofficialâ Saturn USB pads, the Play-Sega ones are only as good as the knock-offs because they are based on the knock-offs.