Mad Catz has a lot coming for the fighting game fan in the near future in terms of fight sticks but they haven't forgotten the player who loves to play with a fightpad. At CES this week, Mad Catz also revealed the brand new Street Fighter x Tekken Fightpad S.D. and, once again, it's a winner.
The S.D. stands for "Super Deformed," a reference to the Japanese style of drawing characters in a diminutive fashion. It's a good fit, as the gamepad sees a 15% reduction in size from the Street Fighter IV pad, an expressed request of Yoshinori Ono himself.
Not that I would ever doubt the wisdom of Ono-san, but I'm happy to say that the adjustment really does make a huge difference. My little man-hands are perfectly capable of using a standard pad, but this smaller version nestles more comfortably and reminds me of the SEGA Saturn pad from long ago and far away. The button layout is nice and tight, everything accessible with very little movement of the thumb necessary. In particular, I liked the shoulder buttons which feel firm enough to prevent any accidental press from a tight grip yet click down in a very satisfying manner.
Even outside of fighting games, this is a pad that I'd give some thought to picking up for some of the more pixel-perfect platformers I play. It's another solid offering from Madcatz, who continue to impress with their ability to design based on the needs of an increasing variety of gamers.
You can grab the Street Fighter x Tekken Fightpad SD for $39.99 when it releases in early March.
Contest:
3:00 PM on 01.14.2012 | 
True that. These pads are great for platformers on XBLA/PSN. I'm gonna pick up one just for that.
Also, don't know if this was mentioned in the op but the PS3 version has a wire this time making it tournament friendly.
The pdp pad has microswitches in the buttons and in the stick and is by far the best pad I have ever used for fighters! Only problem is they brake easily and after going through 2 in 2 weeks I toughened up and threw out money for a se fight stick and modded it with all Sanwa parts.
Took a couple months to learn but there is no way in hell I will ever pick up a pad for a fighter again unless its SSB!
I just wish they'd come out with a Saturn controller officially Xp
do not kop these fightpads.. PDP makes the versus controller which is a much better fighting game control pad
@Nephrite: You do realize that your IP can be traced back to PDP headquarters pretty easily, right? ;)
Lol, ya I mentioned that earlier, the PDP pad is the best hands down imo for fighters.
But they brake so easily, I went throught 2 in a couple weeks and I was done after that :/
lol
Actually no its the other way around. The 360 one is still wired but now the PS3 one is wired also.
Wireless controllers are generally frowned upon in the fighting game community (for many reasons) ESPECIALLY in tournament play with some tournaments banning wireless controllers all together.
I've already seen a lot of positive response to madcatz decision to go wired for the ps3 version, they really are just getting better and better with their fighting game pads and sticks, SFXT looks siiiiiiick!