The first one I bought was the Fighter Stick SG-6 (aka MD-6 internationally).
The Fighter Stick SG-6 was made by asciiware: the company behind the famous NES advantage. That should give you a good idea of the build quality. The SG-6 was a good stick for its time, but it doesn't hold a candle to real arcade parts. Like all asciiware sticks, this one was manufactured in Taiwan. The ball-top stick feels a little "mushy" when trying to execute dragon punch. The metal base has a nice, solid feel despite the small footprint.
I recently bought the SNES equivalent (aptly called Fighter Stick SN) just to round out my collection. There is no major difference between the two with the obvious exception of the controller port.
Though the SG-6 was a good budget stick in its day, there are better alternatives now.
When Street Fighter II came to home consoles, I upgraded to the Capcom Power Fighter Stick.
The Capcom Power Fighter Stick is a Japanese-style arcade controller made to higher standards. It has the "clicky" ball-top stick and convex buttons popular in the land of the rising sun. There's also a switch to cancel out the diagonals, effectively making the eight-way stick pull double duty as a four-way stick for Ms. Pac-man or any other game which requires similar control. Capcom did a good job designing a reasonable facsimile of quality arcade controls. While it's not made with real arcade components, it feels pretty damn close even to the discerning arcade gamer. The only drawback is the lightweight plastic base.
I also own the SNES equivalent to this controller. Ironically the SNES version has a black and grey color scheme, and the Gen version has a beige and purple color scheme. It must have been opposite day at Capcom's factory. Go figure. There's also a strange port on the SNES version. I'll go into detail on that some other day.
The Capcom Power Fighter Stick is by far the highest quality genesis controller I've ever owned. I highly recommend it.
Typing this up makes me want to take pictures of my retro arcade sticks and do full reviews. Maybe I can tackle that over Thanksgiving break. By the way, does anyone own Sega's official arcade stick? Aside from the obvious, is there any other difference between the three-button version and the six-button version?
