Xbox 360 Arcade Sticks
The Xbox 360 has a meager selection of sticks; however there are certaintly ones out there that can suit your needs.
Hori Real Arcade Pro EX
Hori has finally released a Real Arcade Pro for the Xbox 360. Hori’s RAPs have a reputation of being some of the best sticks you can buy, so don’t expect the EX to be any different. Like the rest of the RAP line, it features a Sanwa JLF joystick and Hori brand buttons connected with quick disconnects. It also features the jack for an Xbox Live headset. It is a little expensive compared to the other Horis but if you want the best quality stick, you’ll buy this one. Thankfully, you wont have to import, because this stick is being released in America, through Amazon.
Hori Fighting Stick EX2 (and variants):
The Hori EX2 is the most common and most easily found Hori stick for the 360. It’s also the cheapest, and it makes for a good beginner’s stick.
The main draws of this stick are its low price, availibility and small form factor. However you sacrifice some of the better features of higher end sticks. The stick is just standard Hori with cheap microswitches and the buttons are Hori buttons soldered to the PCB (meaning that if you ever decide to upgrade to real arcade parts or if one of the buttons malfunctions, it’ll be a hassle to change them).The buttons are slightly unrepsonsive, at least in comparison to Sanwa and Seimitsu buttons, and the stick’s throw is a tad too short.
The stick works adequately, but enthusiasts should look elsewhere if they are not on a budget or are accustomed to better sticks.
Hori Hyper Stick Pro Otomedius Gorgeous Edition
A stick specially designed by Hori for the home release of Konami’s shmup Otomedius Gorgeous. It’s main features are a Sanwa JLF joystick and Sanwa OBSF 30 pushbuttons, and most notably, a touch screen, just like the arcade release. Now there are two problems with this stick: one is that the layout is only good for games that utilize four buttons or less like Soul Calibur (and whenever NeoGeo games come out for XBLA, they’lll be fine too, lol); and the other is that it’s only sold in bundles with the game, and the game only works on NTSC-J region consoles. Oh, and the bundle costs over $300. Still, it’d be cool to have this stick. You know, just cause.
MadCatz Xbox 360 Arcade Game Stick
As you can see, this may not be the best choice for fighting games. The joystick portion is one of the analog sticks, as opposed to the preferred digital pad and the button layout isn’t any better than the standard Xbox 360 controller. It’s been said that this stick is good for padhacking.
On the bright side, it comes with a free Xbox Live Gold trial subscription.
Madcatz Street Fighter IV FightStick
The first of 2 sticks produced by MadCatz for the home release of Street Fighter IV. This one is intended to be the lower-end stick that’s affordable and will likely be one of the more popular sticks in the near future.
MadCatz Street Fighter IV FightStick Tournament Edition
The second in the series of upcoming sticks for the SF4 home release. This is the high-end stick with what looks like a better construction than the standard FightStick, and it is reported to ship with a Sanwa joystick (likely the JLF) and Sanwa buttons, which is a first for MadCatz. This stick is set to release on February 20, 2009, which is within days of SF4′s release.
*this page can and will get updated when necessary*
Filed by Viewtiful Dru at November 29th, 2008 under