Life and Leisure. Tech and Toys.

With the release of Super Street Fighter 4 I’ve been looking into modding a Madcatz SF IV arcade stick and I thought it’d be useful to share some of the resources/information I’ve collected around the internet.

First you’ll need a Madcatz Street Fighter IV Arcade FightStick for PS3 or Xbox 360. This stick is a great starting point for making a Tournament quality arcade stick because there is no soldering done by the manufacturer. Everything is held together by clips and screws. This stick is also easily found in the United States, otherwise amazon has them for $50.

Why mod this stick? This Madcatz stick doesn’t come with quality Sanwa parts used in the higher end $100+ arcade sticks. The stock Madcatz parts result in a shorter life span and funky inaccuracies while trying to pull off special moves and combos.

Second you’ll need to get a hold of some Sanwa parts. A very popular site is lizardlick.com. Here is the shopping list:

• 1 Sanwa JLF-TP-8YT-SK Ball Handle Joystick, 4 & 8-Way Adjustable (Sanwa Joystick)
• 1 Sanwa LB-35 Joystick Ball Top (Sanwa Ball Head, sold separately)
• 8 Sanwa OBSF-30 Pushbutton (Sanwa Buttons, choose your colors wisely)
• 1 Sanwa GT-Y Octagonal Restrictor Plate (Sanwa Octagonal Restrictor Plate for some good old Hadouken action) *OPTIONAL*

Unfortunately this comes out to around $65 after shipping just for the Sanwa parts. So unless you can find the Madcatz stick used or on sale you’re probably spending around the same amount as buying a $100+ arcade stick. But at least you get the gratitude of customizing one of these yourself.

Now put it all together. Here’s a pretty good video on how to do that:

If you also picked up the optional Octagonal Restrictor Plate it’s pretty easy to just pop on and off but here’s a not so good video if you need it: Link.