I would like to send my thanks out to Chuplayer, a viewer of my site (as well as a good author) for sending me such good pictures of his CPS, as well as such a nicely written article. Thanks again :)

Hi! Call me Chuplayer. This is my first contribution to The Warp Zone. I hope it's a good one :)

This is the CPS Fighter Joystick by Capcom. I found this at Funcoland for $15. It looked interesting, to say the least, with two different plugs for two different systems. It is both NES and SNES compatible. It comes with two different cords, one for each system, as you can see in the picture. There is no NES or SNES switch. It's all plug and play. It is better used with the SNES, however, because of the more comfortable button layout. NES's A and B buttons map to the lower two buttons, and that's just not very comfortable. They are strictly horizontal, and not diagonal like on the NES Advantage. You're better off with the NES Advantage for your NES Joystick needs. To its merit, it does have some cool options. Most interestingly is the 4-8 way selector located just to the right of the joystick. This alters the way the joystick behaves. The 4 way acts like joysticks in Dig Dug and Pac Man arcade machines. It gives a very authentic arcade feel because when the stick is angled diagonally, it does not respond, just like in Pac Man and Dig Dug arcade machines. The 8 way gives you a Street Fighter style response. It allows for diagonals, and is recommended for playing Contra. To the upper right of each button is a light. It shows whether the button is pressed or not, and the level of turbo selected. To enable turbo, you must hold the desired button and press the level of turbo from the turbo buttons to the right. There are 3 different speeds. There is also a turbo off button.

The buttons and stick are all very responsive, so you won't be beating the joystick out of rage when you die. The buttons are very quitet, although I can't say the same thing about the stick itself. The stick is very clicky. It's very loud, but it's not very distracting. As long as you use the proper 4-8 selection, you won't have any problems at all.

These are the plugs for NES and SNES. Each of them are on their own individual cord.

The plug on the left is on one end of each cord. You plug it into the socket on the right which is located on the front of the joystick.

This is a bottom view of the joystick. It has the usual screws and holes. You can see a strange part on the lower left hand corner of the stick. It cannot be opened from the outside, but it can be opened from the inside. What could it be for?

This part is next to the cord socket on the front of the joystick. This also cannot be removed from the outside, but can be from the inside. What could they be trying to cover up?

It's time to take you inside the game! I have removed the bottom panel. Now, the main PCB and joystick mechanism are exposed. (PCB means printed circuit board.) I'll show more of the main PCB and disassemble the joystick mechanism later.

After removing the bottom panel, I found a clip that held that strange part on the lower left hand corner of the joystick. I bent the clip and the part came off. What is found is simply shocking. It's a battery compartment! It even shows you which way to put the batteries in. Obviously, this model does not have battery compatibility, but other models could have. Also, that strange cover on the front of the joystick could be a cover for the infrared transmitter that was never there. Of course, there would have to be a receiver which would have to plug into the console, too. Interestingly, nowhere on the joystick is a spot where you would put a player 1 or player 2 switch. So, that would mean that if two people had two joysticks, they would not be able to use them together. Perhaps the 4-8 switch was changed into a player 1-2 switch in infrared models, and the stick was permanently in 8 way mode.

This shot allows you to see the other side of the PCB, the underside of the front panel, and the underside of the buttons. The silver and black switch in the upper right hand corner is the 4-8 switch. That black part directly underneath it is the thing you use to switch modes when the stick is fully assembled. You can see small black and silver buttons on the left and right sides of the PCB. Those are for turbo functions, select, and start. Finally, the main 6 buttons use an interesting type of switch. They don't use those rubber pieces used in most other controllers. They appear to be sort of like the button mechanism in the Atari 2600 Paddle controllers, but if they are, I'm not risking it. I disassembled the Paddle button mechanism, and it was difficult to put back together. There are at least 3 very small parts that can be easily lost, including a spring which can fly away or poke you in the eye.

This is the joystick mechanism disassembled. That white part covers up the 4 switches on the top. They appear to be microswitch based. Interestingly, the switches are labeled Matsushita, otherwise known as Panasonic. When the stick is tilted, those silver strips move, make their loud clicking noise, and the motion registers. You can see all of those wires coming out of the switches and going to the mainboard.

The interesting fact about this joystick is how Super Street Fighter 2 for the SNES was made with this button layout in mind. It had an option in the options menu called CPS Fighter. By enabling that function, the buttons mapped into the famous Street Fighter layout.

I'm not sure if other systems had their own cord for this joystick. For example, the SEGA Genesis. I doubt it did, though. The NES and SNES controllers are farily similar in construction and function, so it would make sense to have a bicompatible joystick. It makes even more sense because the NES and SNES cords are just plug and play without any extra system specific switches. There are SNES to NES controller adapters, after all.

I would recommend Pac Man, Dig Dug, Galaga, Contra, Super C, Donkey Kong, and any other arcade port on the NES. However, you must remember how the NES layout isn't very comfortable. One button or no button games work well, though. On SNES, Street Fighter is a given. However, me being the SNK fan I am, I like using it with Fatal Fury Special. I can imagine Contra 3 working, but I haven't tried it. Too many buttons spread out in a weird way.

I give this joystick a 8 out of 10. It's about as close as it gets to a real arcade joystick, but the NES layout isn't as comfortable as it is on the NES Advantage joystick.