GamersDailyNews has posted a large 3-page review of the new Mad Catz Tournament Edition S FightStick. This article starts off with all of the general spiel you expect from every site, but it soon goes more in depth talking about the playing surface and dimensions.It should be noted the Fightstick S is very similar to the original Tournament Edition Fightstick. It makes some minor improvements such as a better lock switch, better top panel artwork, and color-labeled buttons, along with trade-offs that aren’t a net positive or loss. Specifically, the Fightstick S is smaller than the original TE Fightstick because it makes a few small omissions along with one big one in making the side panels much smaller. This trade-off makes it more portable if you intend to go to an out of town tournament, but also makes it a little easier to bump around during actual play.
Does the product have any flaws? A few, but they’re fairly small or obvious ones. The most obvious is the removal of a rounded border for the top panel. This isn’t a problem for some stick grip styles, but some players may wish to leave their forearms on the sides of the top panel... and in this case doing so causes your arm to rub against a rather abrasive surface. It’s not sharp or dangerous, just rough. Fortunately it’s easily fixed, a simple do-it-yourself project can add a nice border to this edge, or even wearing long sleeves or a jacket would suffice. The other flaw is somewhat unfair to criticize, but has to be mentioned anyway: Not all tournaments are run on Xbox 360s. Likewise they’re not all run on PS3s either, so neither system’s version of the Fightstick S would be a perfect solution.
I wish I was rich so I could afford one of these. I mostly muddle through with a keyboard, but 720s are pretty close to impossible, and I really want to try T. Hawk :(
@CONSTvariable23
Man, you can even play with a keyboard? My hat goes off to you.
Madcatz is on my poop list. I love the design of the sticks. The fact there is actual Sanwa parts is great! The PCBs are horrible!! I purchased a TE and a SE stick and they both had PCB failure! Definitely pissed me off seeing how I dropped close to $250.00 on their product!
PCB is the Printed Circuit Board, basically "the brain" of the arcade stick. If it fails all sorts of screwy things can happen like losing the function of buttons etc.
I like mine (black version). I even went so far as to customize it with a "bat-style" handle and switched out the white buttons for black. I have been actively using Happ-based controls for years. This is the closest I come to thus far as being solid enough for actual play. I am not too thrilled with how close the handle is to the buttons. American consoles seem to have had better in the past. I still prefer my Happ-based MAS Controllers, but if this is the new "norm", I suppose that I will have to adapt. Overall, this is definitely the best factory-made controller out there for SSFIV.
I already have one and I love it. The only problem is its my first arcade stick and I started playing street fighter on a controller, so its taking some getting used to. I'm now terrible with motion characters due to the square gate, but I main Blanka, so its not terrible and I'm sure I'll get used to it.
@ shazzam I had the first arcade stick of sf4 and It broke and I went back to controller and now I can't play well with thos one becuz of the sqaure gate when I try to fadc to ultra with ryu ken sagat rufus I end up doing a shouryken just becuz if it im going to switch it next week it would really step up my game
I like mine. Still taking me awhile to get used to the Sanwa stick vs the other Chinese stick I had from Niking. It's barely smaller and almost the exact weight of the original according to SRK.