Alpha Posted August 26, 2009 Share Posted August 26, 2009 Product: JOYTRON XConverter 360 (PS2->XB360 Controller Converter)Review Author: GameCopProduct Website: http://www.joytron.co.kr/goods/view.asp?g_code=CD007-00377Price: $23 USD [ To purchase the XConverter360, private message "laugh" at Shoryuken.com Forums ] Product Supplier: Laugh--> View other products he sells! - Introduction -The XConverter360 is an innovative and new converter sold in Korea for fans of Playstation 2 controllers and arcade sticks that would like to see them playable on the XBOX 360. Made possible by the user "laugh" at the popular fighting game fan website, Shoryuken, he sells them each for $23 USD. When I saw his original post in their popular Converter Compatibility Thread, I immediately contacted him to be one of the first to review the converter. First off, many fighting game fans like myself have been looking for a way to use our dusty PS2 (Hori anyone?) arcade sticks on the 360. The XConverter360 also allows you to hook up your PS2 controllers to the PC, while being recognized as a wired XBOX 360 Gamepad, which is great for emulators and whatnot. Now, with the release of Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 and King of Fighters XII this summer, the XBOX 360 gamepad will no longer suffice for professional gamers. The popular Mad Catz Street Fighter IV Tournament Edition arcade stick may be a great solution, but is very expensive for gamers who have already paid over a $100 for an arcade stick made for another gaming console. This is when the JOYTRON XConverter360 for $23 USD becomes an affordable and cheap solution if you previously purchased a Playstation 2 arcade stick. - Opening the Box - "Laugh" sent me the converter via EMS shipping, which, surprisingly, I recieved in only 3 days. He offers both EMS and Air Mail shipping, depending on your preference. The converter was packaged very securely with plenty of plastic bubble wrap encapsulating the converter box. The retail box itself has the hole puncture at the top to be hanged at Korean gaming shops for purchase. "Laugh" is one of the first to market the popular PS2->PS3 inPin converter internationally. The PS2->PS3 inPin has been a godsend for fighting game fans, as it has no input lag. You can purchase the inPin converter from him as well by the aforementioned method. I would also like to bring to attention that there may be other PS2->XBOX 360 controller converters on the market, but they may have input lag. Therefore, I also will be focusing on lag testing the XConverter360 in this review. I found the box of the converter itself quite interesting as it has a picture of an arcade stick on the side, which tells the buyer that it was advertised to work with arcade sticks as well. I found that as something crucial to notice (also found in the instruction manual), as no one goes to a Burrito Restaurant for hamburgers. You go there for the Burritos because that's what they advertise and you know that is what they're good at making. Maybe it's a lame analogy, but the point is that it definitely gave me strong expectations that it would work well with my PS2 arcade stick. In the instruction manual, it also shows pictures of it working with the PS2 gamepad (of course) as well as the PS2 racing wheel. The PS2 racing wheel was a surprise, since you can probably find them on sale for a much cheaper price than an XBOX 360 racing wheel. Unfortunately, this review does not cover testing for the PS2 racing wheel, as I simply do not own one, and that most buyers are purchasing this product for fighting games. Overall, if the XConverter 360 meets our expectations in this review, then it could certainly save us a lot of money. In the retail box, you will find the converter wrapped in plastic bubble wrap with a handy instruction manual. The instruction manual is truly unreadable if you can't read Korean, but it is good for seeing the button mapping tables to discover what buttons on the PS2 controller will act as on a XBOX 360 controller. You can find the tables on the back of the retail box as well. - Product Specifications - [ Features ]- Compatible with PS2 joypad and joystick (switch 1)- Compatible with PS2 racing wheel (switch 2)- Switch to use joypad or racing wheel- Perfect button layout for stick and wheel- Vibration support- Channel Display 4 LED- Equipped with Guide button- Compatible with PC (needed MS PC driver), vibration support [ Notice ]- For use this product at Xbox360 console, you need original Xbox360 usb wired pad- You can download MS PC driver at MS homepage - Product Build -I was quite satisfied with the product build of the XConverter 360. It feels very high quality and almost as if it was made by Microsoft. JOYTRON did a great job in designing the product so it would blend well with the motif of the XBOX 360 (white). My only complaint has been the short USB cable on the XConverter360, which made it difficult for me to hook it up to my XBOX 360 in my elevated entertainment stand. You can't really set the converter on top of the 360 since the converter is very light weight. The only good place is on the floor, which may be difficult depending on your home set up. Perhaps a good solution would be to use sticky velcro to keep it stuck on top of the 360. In the picture above, I sat the converter and Madcatz XBOX 360 Wired Gamepad on a chair, so I could hook it up. One thing I haven't mentioned is that the XConverter360 needs a wired XBOX 360 gamepad in order to work. For our tests, we purchased a cheap Madcatz XBOX 360 Wired Controller to successfully do the job. I've heard you can also use a Guitar Hero XBOX 360 Wired Guitar as well. You can also find the official XBOX 360 wired controllers sold for cheap on eBay. The XConverter360 has 4 red LED's to indicate which player it is set to (player 1, 2, 3, 4). It's more of an aesthetic feature, as the connected XBOX 360 Wired Controller indicates also what player it is set to when hooked up to the XConverter360. Disappointingly, we noticed that the XConverter360 has no slot for an XBOX 360 headset. We tried hooking up the headset to the connected Wired XBOX 360 headset, but as expected, it did not work, and the XBOX 360 acted as if no headset was plugged in. The reason why we expected it is that the connected wired XBOX 360 controller (used as a bypass for the PS2 controller to work) is not functional when hooked up to the XConverter360. Only the connected PS2 controller is! - GamePlay -A little simple math equation ... ( OR ) + = So finally, we are at the gameplay section of this review. I'm guessing the people at Shoryuken forums reading this review immediately scrolled down to this section because this is what matters the most, right? The way it works is you plug in your PS2 gamepad, arcade stick, or racing wheel and also an XBOX 360 Wired Gamepad (official or unofficial) into the XConverter 360. You then plug in the USB cable connected to the XConverter360 into one of the USB slots on your XBOX 360. Unfortunately, you can't use an XBOX 360 Play & Charge Kit to plug in your wireless controller into the converter, as it will not work. Again, the XBOX 360 Wired Gamepad is no longer functional once plugged into the XConverter360. The only sign that the controller is connected are the lit up green indicator lights around the XBOX 360 logo button. The XConverter360 has a guide button and a 1-2 switch on the unit itself. The guide button functions as the XBOX 360 logo button on your XBOX 360 gamepad. The 1-2 switch is to set the converter to work on either the PS2 gamepad or arcade stick (switch 1) or the PS2 racing wheel (switch 2). When we first hooked up our official PS2 gamepad, we were pleased to find that the analog button acts as the guide button after you press it once. We tested the PS2 gamepad with Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, Street Fighter 4, and the Batman Arkham Asylum Demo. We experienced absolutely no lag, much to our delight, and both the left and right analog sticks worked perfectly. When setting the controls for the game you want to play, it's imperative you look at the button mapping table on either the retail box or in the instruction manual. This tells you what XBOX 360 buttons the PS2 buttons are assigned to. The top table show on the box and instruction manual is for switch 1 (PS2 gamepad or arcade stick) and the bottom table is for switch 2 (PS2 racing wheel). We have a picture of the table shown above in case you threw away both. Now, for the moment you've all been waiting for... testing the XConverter360 with a PS2 arcade stick! In our tests, we used the Hori Real Arcade Pro 2: SA, which we fully reviewed last year. The PS2 arcade stick worked perfectly without lag while playing and executing various combo's and maneuvers in Street Fighter 4, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, and Super Street Fighter II: HD Remix. The turbo switches on our arcade stick functioned well enough. We were asked during the review process if pressing Start+Select at the same time acts as the guide button. Unfortunately, there are no button presses you can use on the arcade stick so it acts as the guide button. The only way is to simply press the guide button on the converter. I tried a few games, such as Street Fighter Alpha 2 (pictured above), and again, it worked perfectly without any lag. It's amazing how well the XConverter360 works and it's a pleasure to know you're getting a product with such great compatibility. You can see how the buttons were recognized on "Map Game Inputs" box in the Final Burn Alpha emulator. There are so many converters out on the market that can only get half the job done or have a lot of compatibility, but a ton of lag. It's very apparent that JOYTRON tested their product extensively. Now you can use your PS2 arcade stick with apps such as GGPO, which allow you to play emulated games online with people around the world via the PC. The possibilities are endless. - Notes / Suggestions -The are only two issues we have had with the XConverter360. First is that sometimes it doesn't boot properly when you turn on the XBOX 360. Occasionaly when we turned on the XBOX 360, the XConverter360 would not turn at all (red LED lights off), or it would turn on with the glowing lights, but neither the connected PS2 or wired XBOX 360 controller would function. The only solution we found for the problem is to turn off the XBOX 360 and pull out USB cable for the XConverter360 from the 360 and then put it back in. The second is that we were unable to get vibration feedback working on the PS2 gamepad when hooked up to the XBOX 360 with the XConverter360. We are currently in contact with "laugh" to figure out the reason. Once we do, we will immediately update the review. For most though, this is not a real issue, as most people are purchasing the XConverter360 to use arcade sticks, for which vibration feedback is not applicable.UPDATE: I spoke to "laugh" and this seems to be an isolated issue with my converter. The vibration feedback appears to work for everyone else. I'm going to try testing it again with an official XBOX 360 wired controller, instead of the Madcatz controller, and see if it fixes the issue. NOTE: We did have the instruction manual partially translated and that you should always first plug in the XBOX 360 wired gamepad and PS2 controller, then connect the converter to the console, and lastly turn on the console. The last part is something most controller converter manufacturers frequently warn about! Finally, we wish the product had XBOX 360 headset support. Perhaps in the future? - Conclusion - Price: 10.0The price of this product is phenomenally inexpensive. It will save you time and money than buying a full fledged wireless XBOX 360 Arcade Stick when you already have one for the PS2. Quality: 8.5The product feels of utmost high quality. It feels sturdy and certainly doesn't feel cheap for the price. It's a little bothersome why it sometimes doesn't boot properly when connected to the XBOX 360. We didn't experience the issue when the XConverter360 was hooked up to the PC. It really is just random. Sometimes it'll work 10 times in a row and then fickle during boot the 11th time. But hey, when it works, it works excellently! You can't find anything better on the market today. Compatibility: 10It's compatible with the XBOX 360 and PC. You can also hook up the converter with a PS2 gamepad, arcade stick, and racing wheel. This is exceptional! Not to mention, we were unable to detect any input lag. Design: 9.0The design is great as it blends perfectly with the original XBOX 360 design, but probably not with the XBOX 360 elite. Features: 8.0Besides being just a controller converter, we hoped it had XBOX 360 headset support. A lot of games like Street Fighter 4, MvC2, which are booming with foul mouth talkers who can't back it up with a good match need a good vocal retort. Also, we're a little worried as to why we couldn't get vibration feedback working. We may increase this score once we find out how to get it properly responding on our PS2 gamepad. UPDATE (again): It appears that this is an isolated issue for us only and vibration feedback works for everyone else. We're still testing our Xconverter360 to figure out why it doesn't work for us. We shall update this review again when we have an answer! # Final Rating (rounded) # Thanks to megaman_zer0, iq_132, and Lord_Snow for proofreading the review! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megaman_zer0 Posted August 27, 2009 Share Posted August 27, 2009 Nice been looking for something like this for awhile now. oh and great review btw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoRd_SnOw Posted August 27, 2009 Share Posted August 27, 2009 it's great that it has an indication for controller slots, but i wish it had more than one slot to plug in those buggers, well i wonder how the multitap would work on this? =] Chances are it may not work at all, but maybe with emulation for emulators, like project64 with mariokart64? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Posted August 27, 2009 Share Posted August 27, 2009 A review! Well done again Gamecop! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iq_132 Posted August 27, 2009 Share Posted August 27, 2009 Nice work. I like the screenshots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L.S.D Posted August 28, 2009 Share Posted August 28, 2009 Nice one! Unfortunately, I have purchased the Madcatz SFIV Tourney stick. if not, i would definitely go for this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alpha Posted September 21, 2009 Author Share Posted September 21, 2009 It seems that our problems with vibration feedback was an isolated issue. We're going to test our XConverter360 again with an official XBOX 360 wired controller instead of the Madcatz. So to conclude, vibration feedback seems to be working for everyone else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Posted September 21, 2009 Share Posted September 21, 2009 Let us know what you find out.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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