Arcade sticks won’t give you an advantage in Street Fighter 6 – here’s why

techradar.com:

With Street Fighter 6 on the way next year and a successful closed beta behind it, you might be looking at investing in an arcade stick in anticipation of Capcom’s upcoming fighting game.

There are many reasons to get an arcade stick. With one you can play many of the best fighting games in a more ‘authentic’ capacity – the most common type of arcade stick mimics the 6-button layout you’d find on arcade cabinets, and they’ll work great with upcoming fighters like Street Fighter 6.

Arcade sticks, with their large plastic buttons and clicky joysticks, are immensely satisfying to use. They’re also highly customizable; many stick owners opt to switch between ‘ball’ or ‘bat’ tops for the joystick itself and concave or convex buttons. If you’re the aesthetically-minded type, you can buy these in pretty much any color you can imagine.

Much like the service Microsoft offers with its Xbox Design Lab, you can make an arcade stick your own unique beast. They’re also a fantastic way to support independent creators, with custom arcade stick faceplates a common service on sites like Etsy.

So arcade sticks look and feel great. But when it comes to playing fighting games competitively, they don't really give you a clear advantage over modern controllers like the DualSense.

As the influence of arcades continues to wane in the modern era, many fighting game makers now develop for consoles first. Custom control schemes in fighting games account for certain combinations of buttons, allowing for shortcuts to special moves or defensive utilities, for example. This isn't exclusive to controllers, of course, but allows them to be far more viable in the competitive space.

This means that pad players have the option to access more of their character’s