As an owner of both platforms I find it preferable to the 360 D-Pad for fighters, which these controllers seem to mimmick.  So I don't see a reason to buy them if you are buying the PS3 version of the game.  On the other hand if you were getting the 360 version the D-Pad would be in a much better position at least.

The Fight Sticks definitely would be preferable to either though.

The 360 Fight Stick costs more because of more expensive licensing fees. I think Microsoft just doesn't allow third parties to use the wireless capabilities of the system, while the PS3 is just blue-tooth, so that's probably why the 360 Pad is wired and the PS3 one is wireless. I don't know why the PS3 sticks are wired and not wireless, though.

For a pad player, any of these pads should be pretty good since they're modeled after the Saturn controllers that a lot of people think are some of the best pads made for fighting games. Having 3 face buttons for punches and kicks also makes things much easier than playing with a standard 360 or PS3 controller. Either way, I have 2 PS3 TE sticks and 1 360 TE stick on pre-order, so I don't really care much about these pads. The TE stick is full Sanwa (stick/buttons) while the cheaper $70 and $80 stick are just made with some MadCatz parts (that I think are actually supposedly decent, but if they aren't, they're quick disconnects so it's pretty easy to buy the buttons for around $25 or so and replace them). The TE is probably the best option if you have the cash, but the other options should be pretty good as well. And there's always the HRAP 3 for PS3 players, which should be $90 on Amazon right now.

Thanks for the info. I guess I'll try the DS3 controller and it's not comfortable enough buy another gamepad.

Here is an interview about them... I did order the Blanka D-Pad.

http://ces.gamespot.com/video.html?sid=6202965

I did order the Chun li One

i ordered the ps3 fightstick tournament edition as soon as i heard about it (dec 10th). unfortunately, i had to pre-order from the US because B&M eb games couldn't confirm if it was going to be released in canada.

as soon as i made the order i wondered if it was a mistake. oh well, i'll just have to make sure i use it a lot.

Sticks seem to be going on ebay for $200-300 right now, so if you end up hating it you should be able to at least break even through resale. It's a Japanese style stick, though, square gate (as opposed to octagonal like an America stick) and ball top instead of bat top, so it may not be your style. It's top of the line, which sounds really strange considering this is MadCatz.

Street Fighter IV is making me broke.

yeah, i was really worried when i heard it was madcatz, but tekkenzaibatsu.com seemed to think it was a quality build (markman worked on it?).

i like the lollipop style joystick, but i'm not too sure what the square gate is. if it's the hole where the joystick comes out of then i'll be okay with that, too.

i'm also going broke on sf4 because let's face it - if i'm going to splurge on the the joystick then of course i'm going to get the collector's edition release!