Mad Catz Street Fighter X Tekken - FightPad SD - Poison & Hugo V.S. King & Marduk for Xbox 360

UPDATE: From what I hear/see, fightpads are often considered bad quality or completely inferior to fightsticks. After playing with this pad for a few months and comparing it to my stick with sanwa parts, this is not a bad fightpad at all. My fightpad has resisted my (mild) abuse of the occasional drop on tile / button mashing and still plays perfectly. It is very comfortable and doesn't hurt my fingers while using charge characters (unlike ps2 dualshock pads). Plinking is a little awkward because you'll generally have to keep your right hand in claw-style to plink or hold Juri's fireball charges, but if pad players can make it into EVO finals then it's not the controller / lack of fightstick holding you back. No issues at all with my madcatz fightpad, would definitely recommend if you don't enjoy your current controller to play fighting games. After all that is said, you can still play well whether you play on fightpad, fightstick or even if you're a keyboard warrior.

I bought these to padhack for a set of arcade controls connected to a Windows PC. I needed an XInput device (360 controller), didn't want to shell out the $50 for a real controller, wanted something easier to hack with digital inputs instead of analog sticks/triggers, and liked that this could emulate analog sticks to make integration with existing games easier. Unfortunately, there's a firmware bug with the analog stick emulation. It's easiest to see in a diagnostic panel like the Windows gamepad properties window. If you push a direction for around half a second and release, the axis reads 100% in that direction, then steps back to 50% and lingers for a quarter second or so, then returns to zero. While it's lingering, you're locked out of pressing that direction again. Fast taps and long presses don't exhibit this behavior; it's tied to a particular window of press duration. I tested three of these, brand new out of the box, and they all had the same bug. I contacted Mad Catz, and they explained that the analog stick emulation is designed for navigating Xbox 360 menus, not actually playing games. There is no fix available. I think that's a poor position to take. I ended up using them in regular DPAD mode. This is less convenient for me, but it works without a problem. I extracted the PCBs from two controllers, replaced the cables with micro USB ports, and soldered wires to the button pads to connect arcade joysticks and switches. I can't comment on the build quality of the pad since I'm not using any of the plastic or the ludicrously long cable. If you're looking to build arcade controls that report as XInput devices, I haven't found a cheaper option (SEE UPDATE BELOW). I saved close to $80 over buying two PS360 arcade wiring adapters, which are the only such devices I've seen that show up like a real 360 controller using the XInput API in Windows. UPDATE: I paid less than $30 for these in 2013. In May 2015, the price spiked to double or triple that. That's nuts. Given their quality, I don't think they're worth that price for any use, let alone hacking apart. The Akishop PS360 PCB goes for around $60 and is purpose-built for wiring up arcade controls.

Bought this about a month ago, and yesterday my LB button snapped and is completely unusable. After very minimal use too, which speaks to the quality of the product. Very disappointed.

Great design, fits just right in my hands. Biggest problem however is the d-pad. I have owned between 5-10 of these controllers since Street Fighter IV came out years ago(I have averaged about 2 per new SF release). The one consistent problem has always been the dpad, specifically the diagonal inputs. Any move that involves a diagonal input becomes a pain. Crouch blocking only to have your character walk back because the diagonal input doesn't register down-back really sucks. In all these controllers, I've been lucky once, controller ended up failing through normal use. Also, the input problem can occur in any diagonal direction, I got lucky again when the issue was in upper left corner, but became a problem when playing with a character that has inputs in the direction. I have been playing fighting games for eons at this point, the best dpad, IMO, was the Japanese Sega Saturn controller, which I also used on the Dreamcast with a converter. Playing SFIII with that controller was a dream. I have been always been a stickler for a good dpad. I have consistently been disappointed with these controllers. Not sure if I should blame MadCatz or Capcom for allowing such a shoddy product. The arcade stick is pretty good, but his isn't a review for that. It sucks that us dpad users have been left in the dust in terms of a good controller and unfortunately, it seems that MadCatz are the only ones making them. Not sure what it says about me that I'm willing to keep buying new controllers, but my options are limited and I keep hoping that I'll find one that is perfect...I'm still waiting.

This pad works really well! KOF XIII was just impossible with a normal 360 pad. I was accidentally jumping and missing inputs entirely. The controls are very finicky but with this pad I'm having no issues. I can do Chun Li's super in street fighter now without much effort too. The face buttons are excellent. They're close together, flat, big, and clicky. Very nice feel. Overall the build quality seems great. This is my first day of ownership but it feels like it will hold up. This is my new favorite for fighting games. I prefer it over even the Dual Shock 4. Excellent product. Got it for $18.25, totally worth trying.

It is very responsive, you should not have any problems performing any move of any type with this controller. The quality of the material of the controller, is another story, it is build of a very cheap material, and sometimes it feels like if you accidentally drop the controller in the floor, the controller might break in a million pieces in the floor. I think if i'm not mistaking that the controller when it first came out, would cost you some $40 to $45 bucks. You would have expected that controller to have a much stronger material for that price. You should be alright, if your not one of those person that's constantly dropping the controller in the floor. If you clumsy then this is not the one for you.

Very comfortable and accurate for fighting games.

I have the Super Street Fighter 4 fight pad (with juri) and that thing has held up really well. It's taken 5 years of zangief pile drivers being mashed out like pot of potatoes. That being said, it's finally starting to go, and rightfully so. This pad was awesome.....for about three days. I play competitively offline, so dropping inputs is an absolute nightmare for me. The bottom left and bottom right diagonals don't work unless you slide into them from down, left or right. Makes blocking low a chore. Sucks because the pad itself is awesome and is super comfortable but I can't recommend it to anyone playing competitively.