Looking around the base reveals the headphone jack, which is a standard 1.8 mm jack rather than the kind found on Xbox 360 controllers (which is a 1.8 mm jack surrounded by two small grooves). From my experience, you should also get good results resting it on your lap. It also has some rubber feet, which is pretty common on these controllers so that you can rest it on a table to use it. You will also notice some bolts that require an Allen screwdriver to open up if you want to get into the guts of the controller to change some parts.Ĭarrying the joystick shows that it has some good weight to it, so it doesn’t feel like a cheap plastic item. There are also two switches there, one to lock the Guide and Rapid Fire buttons, the other to determine if the joystick should work as a digital pad, the left analog stick, or the right analog stick in a standard Xbox 360 controller. The top left of the stick has the Xbox Guide button and a few other buttons meant to activate the rapid fire functionality. The other two are dark grey with black frames. The joystick is a classic Japanese ball-top stick with a white ball and six out of its eight buttons are white. The stick itself has a plastic body that’s shaped very similarly to Taito Viewlix arcade cabinets (in fact, I wonder if Madcatz paid some royalties to use the design as it’s just so similar, if not identical), with a subdued flame over black art with a IV made out of flames and the Street Fighter IV logo at the lower right. The dual doors that you open ar first have a certificate of authenticity printed on the left side, and the whole thing uses magnets to close when set to storage. Even when unboxing it you get treated to an attractive package that’s composed of two laminated cardboard doors that open to reveal another cardboard door, this one with a see-through window in the middle so you can look at the joystick within it. Everything from the quality of the packaging to the weight and look of the device is top notch. Madcatz certainly splurged on this joystick. However, after countless hours of Street Fighter IV, BlazBlue, King of Fighters XII, Garou: Mark of the Wolves, and many other titles (including some that aren’t fighters, such as Raiden Fighter Aces), I must say that I am glad I didn’t let my initial impression stop me from trying it out.

I had purchased Madcatz accessories in the past, and they usually left a very bad impression on me every single time (except for the Rock Band 2 Cymbal Expansions, but that’s not the item being reviewed here), so I was hesitant about a joystick with a $150 price tag and the Madcatz name attached to it. When I first heard about a high quality arcade stick by Madcatz I was not very convinced.

Street fighter 4 arcadestick