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Sega Genesis 6 Button Control Pads on PS3!
posted on 17:29 01/20/2009 by idiot

Exactly one year ago after an additional week had past I posted This amazing blog about hooking up a Sega Genesis controller to the PC via a USB cable which sucks because RetroZone is now NintendoOnlyZone and no longer offers the USB Sega adapter. On top of this the button mapping of their adapter was really strange. They had buttons mapped to the d-pad, in addition to the d-pad being, well, the d-pad. What this meant was when you plugged it into, say, the PS3, it was completely useless.

After buying Street Fighter II HD Remix on the PS3 and cursing the horrible d-pad Sony insists on using on every game system they release, I had sore thumbs. I went online to see if there was a solution to my problem and that's when I found THIS. It looked like everything I wanted, and all that was missing what knowing what the button mapping was for the adapter. See, as I've mentioned before hooking up a standard USB controller to the PS3 is no problem. The Air-Flo USB controller I've used successfully is like this. In fact, the button mappings are identical to the PS3's. In Windows they are as follows:

Air-Flo USB controller button mappings in Windows

Even the clicky sticks work!

The 1-8 buttons are the four main face buttons, and the four triggers. So for a controller to work it would have to support action buttons in that range. After a few emails with Raphael Assenat, the guy who runs the site, we concluded this was the case and would work. The only downside is he's got the button mappings as you may expect: There are 8 buttons on the Sega pad, so they use 1-8 on the button mappings. This means no start button, but I was willing to live with that.

The order shipped from Canada exactly one week ago, and arrived today. It works exactly as advertized.

The Sega Genesis 6 button control pad working on Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix for PS3

A thing of beauty

It is extremely responsive and I was amazed that I could suddenly pull off fireballs and dragon punches again. The only problem is the lack of a start button, I have to use the standard PS3 controller to start the game, pausing is out of the question and I can't continue once I lose a match. Obviously the USB adapter is made for computers and only works with the PS3 as a side affect of Sony using standard USB inputs, but I believe the adapter could be redesigned just a bit to work perfectly. For example, one solution would be to map a combination of Mode+Start to be button 9, or maybe holding down a button when you plug the controller in could map start and mode to buttons 9+10 instead. But it works as advertized it is a dream to play with the old Sega pad for Street Fighter 2, so I really can't complain.

The button mapping for Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix when using the Sega Genesis USB adapter

Buttons are mapped suchly for XYZ, ABC

Seeing how the market for this for computers is the small number of people who recognize that the Sega Genesis 6 button controller is one of the greatest controllers of all time, the market for a USB adapter that's got some extra effort thrown at it just to make the PS3 work a bit better with it is probably just me. So regardless, mega kudos to Raphael for putting this thing together. It reportedly even works with the Sega 4 player adapter, but I don't have one so I couldn't tell you about that. Anyway, check out his stuff at RaphNetShop.com, he's even got adapters to use various classic control pads on the Wii, which is awesome for the Virtual Console stuff.

USB cable disconnects for your convenience

Comments:

08:46 01/21/2009 Thai sez:
Thanks for the informative post! I love the 6 button genesis d pad as well, can't wait 'til mine comes in. Too bad about the start button though.

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