> > Only in America. Japanese cabinets always used the Sanwa or Seimitsu ball-top > sticks, > > and they're preferred by most serious fighting game fans. > > Well, my board is "Street Fighter II (USA 910206)". So, yeah, I'd prefer a controller > that comes closest to how this very arcade cabinet would look like.
Those boards were exported bare, and cabinets were manufactured locally. There was no single standard cabinet for it. It would've looked different regionally.
> > Japanese arcade cabinets have flat or slightly convex buttons. > > Yeah, but are the Japanese arcade cabinets the most commonly known? I would have > thought that the American ones are the ones that are known by most gamers. So, how > come the controllers are all based on how the Japanese cabinets look like?
American cabinets actually aren't that common outside America. Asia has tended to use Japanese cabinets or clones all along. From the late '90s onwards a lot of Sega and Namco cabinets were exported worldwide, particularly second-hand Sega Astro City. There's never been much of a market for console fighting sticks with American controls. People serious enough to want them will prefer the ergonomics of Japanese controls - they're better suited to fighting games. American controls can be found in things like X-arcade, built by Americans to help fellow Americans relive the American arcade experience of their childhood at home.
> By the way, is there a document or a website where the layout of arcade cabinet > controls are documented? (I.e. the exact measurements of the button and joystick > locations.) Maybe I'll just get someone to build one from scratch with actual arcade > parts.
Well that varied enormously, too. Even in the same cabinet you could have different control panels. For example a Sega Astro City could have a Sanwa panel, or a Seimitsu panel, each with a different layout and slightly different controls. Then Namco cabinets had standard panels that were different again. Building from scratch is your best option for sure. That lets you choose the exact controls and layout you want.
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