BrianC wrote:
Are these similar to the NES Advantage (which is a US version of one of the Ascii sticks)? I know some JP stick counterparts have microswitches when the US counterparts don't. Is that the case here?
No, these are the high end microswitched sticks. Yeah, the NES advantage is also an ASCII stick IIRC but of a lower grade model with rubber domes or something. These sticks are similar to the sticks that come with a Neo-Geo AES.
BrianC wrote:Is that pad for MSX? It looks similar to the Joycard I have for FC, which is a nice pad.
That pad is for 9-pin connectors, which became kind of a loose standard. It works with MSX, X68000, FM Towns, some Sega stuff like the Master System, etc. Also works with things like C64, Amiga, many Atari systems. It's pretty much exactly like the Hudson Joycard for Famicom and yeah it's really nice.
e: This is the ASCII stick the NES Advantage is based on:
Funnily enough the official Nintendo licensed stick for the Famicom in Japan is made by Hori (though it's not a very good stick, similar to the Advantage):
And it got released in the US as a third party stick, as "Shinsei Hyper Stick":
Also released under the Hyper name in the US was this very good Hori pad, great pad if you're stuck with only a US NES:
This pad was also released as a licensed Sega product for the Master System, and should really be the default MS pad because of the horrible dpad on the originals: