Introducing the Ultimate Atari Fight Stick and Ultimate Atari Fight Stick with Trackball

NickBiederman

Today we launched the newest additions to our retro gaming lineup: the Ultimate Atari Fight Stick and Ultimate Atari Fight Stick with Trackball. We’ve been offering a USB 2 player Atari Fight Stick and 2 player Atari Fight Stick with Track ball for a while now, but the USB versions only provide the controller. They need to be connected to a Raspberry Pi, PC, or other system to create a complete gaming set up. This provides more flexibility at the expense of convenience. The new Ultimate Fight Sticks add a Raspberry Pi running RetroPie to the cabinet, creating a complete gaming set up in one unit. In addition, the Ultimate Fight Sticks come loaded with over 100 officially licensed Atari games on our Atari Games Card. This allows you to get started gaming without having to track down games or worry about the legality of downloading ROMs. Everything comes pre wired and ready to go. You’ll need an internet connection to complete the initial set up and a TV or monitor with an HDMI input.

The Ultimate Fight Sticks retain all the features of the USB versions. Both use the same control layout, support single and two player games, and use the same XinMo Co. USB encoder. We’ve used the same high- quality buttons, switches, joysticks, cabinets, and track balls as our other retro gaming products to ensure the Ultimate Fight Sticks will provide a durable and enjoyable gaming experience. Like the USB Fight Sticks, the Ultimate Fight Sticks include a hydraulic lifters and a lock. This makes it easy to access the internals while keeping them secure. You can find the Ultimate Fight Sticks and USB Fight Sticks at the links above, or check out our Retro Arcade Builder to design your own Fight Stick or arcade cabinet.

Dyltone

Not to "Osborne" your wonderful product, but are there any plans to offer this with a Pi4?

NickBiederman

@Dyltone
We don't have any concrete plans to offer this with a Pi 4, though it is possible the next iteration will have a Pi 4. It's dependent on a number of factors including our development schedule and availability of the hardware. In the mean time, it's possible to make your own using our USB fight stick and a Raspberry Pi 4. You'd lose some of the convenience, but would gain the extra power of the Pi 4. 

Sparklesofblue_1

Hi Nick!  I just received this beast!  I would really like to add more games, but I am new to this.  Is there any help I can receive as to how to use this with my pc laptop?  Thanks

NickBiederman

@sparklesofblue_1
If you have the Ultimate version you can add more ROMs to the Raspberry Pi using the instructions here. 

If you're wanting to play PC games it will depend a lot on the specifics of what you're tying to do. For emulation Retroarch works great. Many other games will be plug and play, but that varies depending on the game and your exact setup. If you have the ultimate version you'll need to disconnect the USB cable(s) from the Raspberry Pi and plug them into your computer.

ninja502

the SFTP option is the one i use to copy more roms over to the unit

i have winscp  and just drag the roms over to the /RetroPie/roms/ (systems name here folder)    example   /RetroPie/roms/nes
some of the arcade stuff will require a newer version of the software lr-mame2016 or lr-mame2015 and can be added under the pi setup

also look for  at https://pixelcade.org/pi-install/ for premade images

tommyv1981

Hey Nick!

I just purchased the atari fight stick with the trackball. I did not get the one with the built in raspberry pi and wanted to use my own image. However, it's only detecting the one controller even with both USBs inserted. The joystick on player 2 is the only thing that responds. How do I get player 2 to detect and map the controls as well as the trackball functionality. That's also not responsive with games like centipede on arcade. Thank you!

TSTDavey

Hello @tommyv1981 thanks for posting on the Microcenter Community Forum. You mentioned you are using your own image. What emulator software are you using? You can also check out this post below if using the RetroArch.

https://community.microcenter.com/discussion/3966/configuring-the-dual-fight-stick-and-trackball

Tpeezy

My wife and mother in law bought this unit for me for Christmas. I saw a man on YouTube with this from Micro Center and he had Colecovision games when he set up his system so I thought if I updated Retropie on mine, I could get the additional Colecovision games too.  I let the system update for several hours but unfortunately for me, there were no Colecovision games and my controllers weren't working after the update.  I have no knowledge of how to fix this.  Can this be explained in the simplest of terms?  

NickBiederman

@Tpeezy The short answer is no. The Colecovision games were not supposed to be in the image. As soon as we discovered they were we rolled back to the previous version. Which controller are you having issues with? The fight stick and PS2 controller should still work properly, but the Trooper II will require configuration.

NickBiederman

@tommyv1981 See this post from the Retropie documentation for instructions on getting the XinMo controller in the fight stick to work properly:

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Xin-Mo-Controller/

Tpeezy

I am not using any other controllers other than the ones that are on the cabinet (fight sticks, trackball and buttons.)  I could select a game , but then nothing worked after that.  

WirelessMikeDJ

Hello, just purchased the Fight Stick with Trackball Ultimate, and I have it all up and running per instructions. The Trackball USB was not plugged in, so I plugged it in a USB2.0 port under the controller. I fired up Centipede, and the trackball is not tracking correctly left-right...the nuts on the bottom were loose, so I tightened them up...but still not tracking right, and the trackball is not the smoothest rolling.

Any ideas? I love this unit, and I love RetroPie. Do you have the joystick config anywhere if I replace the Rasberry PI 3 with a 4b and redo with my own RetroPi setup?

Thank you.

-Mike

WirelessMikeDJ

I returned the unit and purchased the fight stick without the PI as I already had a 3b at home to pop in and working on configuring a 4b as we speak to swap in.

WirelessMikeDJ

So I added a PI4 to the Fight Stick without the PI.  I added a USB 7port hub inside and added flush mount USB ports to the front and a flush mount HDMI/USB ports to the back.  It’s tight but with some creative wire routing it works like a charm and you don’t have to pop it open every time you want to connect external things to it.

2ericcannon

Is there anyway to get you guys to sale a plexi top for this? I really need a plexi top for it to be able to give it that authentic arcade look with the plexi.

Rey_Scorpio21

The Atari Arcade Centipede aspect ratio is a bit off. The top and bottom cut off. Where in the cfgs can I correct this?or is there another area to correct this?

cryptocoffee

Would anyone know how to update a Retropie SD card that I have for this? It works, the games work, but it won't recognize the trackball. I think the Pi needs to be updated and the Pi to the newest version that may be able to recognize the Atari Fightstick. When I plug it into the Pi400, it recognized the Atari Fight Stick and the trackball worked perfectly. The Pi 4.0 I have won't work on the Atari Fighstick 3b version.

Dyltone

https://community.microcenter.com/discussion/comment/21434#Comment_21434

So 4 years later… no Pi4, no Pi5, and no Atari Fight Sticks at all. Sad…
Please bring this product back, it needs to exist.

PaulL

@Dyltone Hopefully, this will be something that we will bring back in the future! At the moment we do not have any plans for it, however. I am very sorry!