X-arcade sticks

#1

Yo, I’m new to this forum so I just first want to say “what’s up?”

Anyway, I’ve been a console gamer my whole life and have had barely any practice with arcade sticks. Now with all these near arcade perfect ports of SF games available on ps2, I feel like a moron using a controller. That thinking led me to buy an x-arcade dual stick. Every site I looked at said they were a worthy investment, but when I came here, I read a few posts which trashed the x-arcade parts. I’ve personally had no problems with the stick, but I guess that could be attributed to my lack of arcade experience. So my question is, what’s wrong with them?

#2

Buttons are too far apart. Concave instead of convex(better). Stick is too stiff. They are not real happs parts. Not even close. Don’t listen to the media.

#3

The parts are crappy pretty much somes it up. I can go through it more thoroughly if you wish.

Stick - The stick is a cheap clone of a Happ Super, which in itself is not the preference for fighters (Competition or P360 is). From my experience it misses diaganols quite often and yeah it’s stiff and just doesn’t feel as good as a Happ.

Buttons - The buttons are also cheap Happ clones. Concave buttons aren’t the preference for fighters (once again Competition is) and the buttons gets stuck easily and are often times unresponsive. I think their microswitches are a little too stiff as well.

PCB - Even with a better stick and buttons, this will still suck. Using their Playstation adapter you will get lag. Heck even just using it on the PC (which is what it is meant for) will lag. And having to hook up 2 big cables to use it on your Playstation doesn’t help either.

Someone should make a sticky about why X-Arcades suck and not to get them.

#4

Yeah, I have noticed that sometimes when I want to jump back, I jump straight up.

Here’s another question though. Compared to other easily accessible sticks, is that really that bad? Like, is it one of the worst? Would I be better off selling it and buying two hori fighting sticks?

#5

get it if u don’t mind wasting money on crap sticks. jk. they are really bad though. stay away from them!

#6

Darth Kidd - I feel your pain.

I too bought a dual x-arcade stick 2 years ago to get better control of my emulated arcade games on the pc.

I loved it for the first 4 months until the novelty wore off, I now hate it and it sits gathering dust while I play with standard ps2 gamepads.

The problems for me were:
Far too heavy and huge. (a major pain in the ass to play single player cause of this)

Horrendous button layout.

To get any closer to your friends in 2 player you would have to be analy penetrating them (v.uncomfortable to play 2 player for long periods).

After some major usage the buttons start to stick (the buttons suddenly will not respond when playing - have to hit them several times to sort it).

connections at the back get loose with time and need some wriggling to get working.

Has to have a ps2 keyboard plugged into it to work (which means needing a second keyboard if you use usb)

it is f***ing HUGE.

I actually found this website when I got fed-up with my x-arcade and started the (lond + drawn out) process of designing and building my own custom sticks.

#7

Well, let’s see if I can clear up some of the trash talking of the X-Arcade products.

First of all, this forum caters to the best fighting game fans, and a large majority of them like the small ball-top Japanese style sticks with square actuators.

The X-Arcades were built mainly around classic gaming, which is why they have concave buttons and Super style joysticks. Thousands of fighting game fans have still chosen to buy the Solo controller and change the buttons and joysticks out with HAPP comps, and they still use them today.

If you are using the standard 2-player controller sitting down it will be indeed tight for 2 players. Most people buy it for use with MAME where they want to play dual-joystick games like Robotron and SmashTV, and casual 2-player play. The 2-player is not actually so small compared to real arcade 2-player setups, it is that your elbows and body in general widen out when you are sitting. When used standing up such as in a cabinet, it’s fine. If you want something wider, the new Tankstick has more than enough room, it is a beast.

As for our microswitches sticking easily, that is false. Our switches have been tested to over 1 million presses and it is very rare for a switch to go bad at all. The defect rate on them is very low even compared to known competitors.

We have also recently begun to use new buttons and new switches that are even better than before. You will notice they are much tighter, less noisy, and very responsive. They have been tested to over 10 million button presses. The Tanksticks have them now, and the rest of our products will slowly move over to them.

You no longer have to plug a keyboard into our controllers anymore either, as all X-Arcade products now have USB support built in. The connections have also been improved.

Finally, the guys at Retroblast.com are regarded as the hardware gurus of arcade hardware. Again, they are not fighting gamers, but they know arcade hardware better than anyone. You can see how our products compare to others for yourself: http://www.retroblast.com/hardware.html

Also you will notice that many who trash-talk the X-Arcades here are building custom controllers for sale here, they seem to be the ones that speak out first and loudest. Just an observation.

#8

your stick is still shit dude

thier is tons more quality out thier for way cheaper the that hunk of shit you call a joystick .

#9

alot of guys on here are THE guys to talk to about arcade shit
theyre pros, i think they know what theyre talking about

head over to the trading outlet and pick up a custom stick
good luck :tup:

#10

X-Arcade PCB lags. Gut it and make it a project box stick like I did.

#11

For Fighting games, get on ebay and see if you can get the Tekken 5 Hori, they were up for like $20 the last time I checked.

Its the ball top Japanese style stick so it’ll take some adjusting, but the layout is really good and its not as big (good if you go to friends houses/ console tournies).

#12

ouch

we all think its shit
cuz we like hardcore precision
the kind we get from japanese parts

x arcade is for ccasual arcade gamers that wanna build a cab to play pac man and sf2 and galaga and all kinds of stuff

i personally dont like the x arcade (seeing as how im not a casual arcade gamer)

im just used to the feel of quality parts

#13

Check out this thread:

http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=128274

#14

Not for nothing, but they do know what they’re talking about a majority of the time. It’s not like they’re stupid. If you’ve ever tried their stuff, you’d think otherwise before saying that. And since they’re in tune with our tastes, they know the deal for us SF players.

Yeah, it sucks that you’re catching flack for your product, but your product doesn’t cater to what we want. My $0.02 on the subject. And believe me, I’ve dealt with an X-arcade before. It doesn’t have that ideal feel that I want in a joystick. I’m more of a Sanwa person.

#15

X-Arcade costs a bit too much for what they are getting. Why spend $120 on an x-arcade solo of questionable quality with imation arcade parts, when one can buy a MAS for $90 with real happ components inside? Or one could buy a SFAC stick and install happ parts in it for about $90 total, and have it come out better too.

If it was cheaper more gamers might be willing to give X-arcade a chance, otherwise there are better options out there for less.

#16

I think the point he was getting at was that they were not made for fighting games in specific. if they made a new fighter model, that may turn some heads, but right now, I think they are better off for the old school mame crowd. That trackball control looked kinda cool, I bet my dad would like that thing.

but yeah, don’t expect to be awesome at marvel with an x-arcade.