Product Description

The official Street Fighter IV FightPad controller for the Xbox 360 was designed specifically for fighting game fans to put new levels of control and precision in the palms of their hands. Using an enlarged, circular 8-way floating D-Pad and a classic six-button layout, the Street Fighter IV FightPad brings the old school fighting game experience right into your home. With separate turbo settings for each button and great ergonomics, prepare yourself for hours of competition, no quarters necessary.

• Enlarged circular 8-way floating D-Pad
• 6-button layout with additional multi-speed Turbo functionality
• Rubber grips for improved handling
• 3-way switch enables D-Pad to also function as left or right analog stick
• Integrated headset port for use with Xbox LIVE

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2116 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Madcatz
• Model: SF4347280/04/1
• Released on: 2009-02-20
• Platform: Xbox 360
• Format: Unknown format
• Subtitled in: German
• Dimensions: .80 pounds

Manufacturer's Description
The official Street Fighter IV FightPad controller for the Xbox 360 was designed specifically for fighting game fans to put new levels of control and precision in the palms of their hands. Using an enlarged, circular 8-way floating D-Pad and a classic six-button layout, the Street Fighter IV FightPad brings the old school fighting game experience right into your home. With separate turbo settings for each button and great ergonomics, prepare yourself for hours of competition, no quarters necessary.

Customer Reviews

2D gaming has come to the 360
This pad is very good, its even better than the Xbox 15th Anniversary control pad in terms of d-pad quality and buttons.

The d-pad is really good, possibly the best I have used for a 2D fighter, it seems to allow smooth transition from one direction to another without becoming loose or irritating the thumb.

I don't usually mention buttons because buttons are buttons, but these are better than I thought they would be, they are flat and slightly larger than normal 360 buttons so they suit 2D gaming better.

The pad is slightly bigger than the 15th Anniversary pad but its still good, feels roomy more importantly it gives the buttons lift as they are now comfortably under my right thumb, they were a bit too low on the 15th Anniversary pad.

While no heavier than the 15th Anniversary pad, it has a more solid feel. Shoulder buttons are better too. It also has rubber grips on the sides and bottom.

The pad has a switch on the underside which allows the d-pad to take over the function of either the left or right analog sticks. Not sure why I would want to though.

Unlike the PS3 version of this pad, this is not wireless. I hear its because MS refuse to let third party peripherals connect to the 360 using its wireless function. This is not a problem; the cable has a lot of length to it.

It looks just like the Xbox controller cables with ferrite beads and the cable break near the USB plug just in case someone trips over it, it will disconnect without taking the whole console with it. But not having a wireless function, as oppose to the PS3 version, didn't come close to factoring in my decision.

The only thing I don't like about what Madcatz has done is put turbo functions on their Official SF control pads and sticks. One, because you lack skill if you need them and two, far more importantly it could make online play unfair if someone used them.

Other fighters have now become highly playable on the 360 with this, I tried it on Street Fighter 15th Anniversary Collection (Xbox B/C), Street Fighter Hyper Fighting (XBLA and quite unplayable on the normal 360 pad) and SSF2T HD Remix (XBLA). All play near perfectly.

This should also be looked at as the 360s classic controller (like the Wii pad) because it fully opens up 2D gaming on the 360. There were many older 2D games I chose not to get or play from XBLA purely because of how bad the 360 pad is for those games.

Its been about 3 months now and still no complaints, works well also with Soul Calibur (XBLA), Street Fighter 4, Virtua Fighter 5 and DOA 4.

Disappointing d-pad, expect better for the money
Upon unpacking this controller about a week ago, two things struck me. The first was that the shoulder buttons are the irritating, shallow kind that click loudly and require just a bit too much pressure to depress. Oh well, not ideal, but no big headache.

The second was that I should perhaps have taken more notice of the words 'circular floating d-pad' in the product description, because the d-pad in question immediately looked dubious to me. It is chunky and (by design) sits slightly removed from the edges of its enclosure. It looked as if it would be awkward to manipulate with precision, and as if its 'floating' nature might make it hard to for me to sense changes in directional input from touch alone. A few quick circles, half circles and quarter circles with the pad still unplugged didn't dispel my worries; it indeed doesn't feel too intuitive on the thumb. Rolling my thumb around it in a slow circle, at certain points it snaps to the next directional input fairly distinctly, at others it seems to glide around without my being able to tell for certain whether, say, I've shifted from Left to Up-Left or not. I suspect this was a conscious design choice in order to make the pad feel familiar to gamers whose preference is for an analogue stick. Unlike the Sega Saturn pads I cut my teeth on, it doesn't feel at all tight.

The proof is in the playing, however. Broadly speaking, the playing has been pretty good. Within a week of owning SF4, I've completed all of the Hard Challenge Trials for Ryu, El Fuerte and M. Bison, and completed Arcade mode on Medium for half a dozen other characters. The Hard trials consist of sometimes ludicrously difficult combos, which some people claim are impossible to pull off without an arcade stick due to the manual dexterity required. That isn't true for the most part; it's perfectly possible to perform genius moves on this pad. El Fuerte's Hard Trials are no joke...

So why 2 stars? Because all too often you have to fight against the pad to accomplish what you want. Occasionally in the heat of battle I'll jump straight up instead of forwards like I intended to, or walk directly forwards instead of jumping. I am still in the phase where I'm trying to figure out how not to get slaughtered against online opponents, so mistaken inputs like this certainly don't help. I found it awkward to consistently hit the diagonals unless I consciously made an extra effort to drag my thumb towards the extremities of the d-pad, which tired my little thumb out pretty quickly (and forces me to be rougher with the pad than I should have to be).

For a while I put this down to my own lack of skill. Tonight, though, I had a bash at Guile's Challenge Trials. While sitting there, stuck on a certain combo, I began to notice something: it's not all my fault. Examining the in-game responsiveness carefully for the first time, I discovered that I can roll the d-pad to what feels like almost 40 degrees above the horizontal without Guile jumping...! That's just shoddy.

Obviously this is less than ideal and I no longer have faith that all of the very hardest trials are possible with this controller. I'm unsurprised that others are complaining about the build quality of the d-pad and reporting malfunctions with that part of the controller. Still, generally speaking, this is a serviceable product. Forcing my thumb perfectly into the diagonals works most of the time for most bog standard fight situations; you can fight against the pad's flaws and triumph fairly often. It's a more or less adequate controller and I'd like to give it 3 stars - the only problem with that is that it cost almost twice as much as SF4 itself did. For that money, there's no excuse for Mad Catz not to have designed a better d-pad for us. Go for it if you have plenty of cash to burn, if you prefer pad to stick, and if you can't be certain of finding a better alternative.

What on earth???
I have based my review on three areas, aesthetics, build quality and functionality. I have played Street Fighter since the early champion edition and world warrior and wanted from this pad what I used to get from the megadrive and nintendo pads.

Aesthetics - The pad does indeed look very nice, a large image of Ken is splashed all over the front of the pad using the same art as the Street fighter 4 game. I also like the design used for the big punchy buttons.

Build Quality - Unfortunatilty this is where things start to go down hill, the D-pad is the reason why most people will be looking to buy this pad and it does feel really cheaply made despite the asking price. The official Xbox controller is very solid where as this feels very fragile.

Functionality - Its a shame that over a decade later Mad-Cadtz have not been able to beat the responsiveness we received from the megadrive/SNES pads. Sigh, unfortunately it is not even good enough to match. It is a solid piece of plastic that is not far off the official d-pad. I am very dissapointed.

The big buttons are actually very nice and very responsive which is one of the few positives I have for this pad.

In summary, I was hoping to have purchased a controller to be atleast as good as the megadrive/Snes or even the playstation but instead have received a very cheaply built controller. What a shame!