The Evolution Championship Series 2026 is about a week away, and the FGC (fighting game community) is hyped. The lineup features heavy-hitting titles such as Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, and FATAL FURY: City of Wolves. If you’ve signed up to compete, a high-quality input device can make or break a match. It just so happens that 8BitDo revamped the Arcade Stick with a fresh coat of paint.
Despite many professional players now using leverless controllers, the rest are still keeping it old-school. So far, the only caveat with this new SKU is the non-native compatibility with the PlayStation game system. However, there are workarounds that use third-party USB adapters.
Straight out of the box, this bad boy pairs flawlessly with Nintendo’s Switch/Switch 2 and Windows PC. So if the beat ’em ups you like are on these platforms, the purple Arcade Stick should be fully supported. From what we can tell, the features are no different from the standard variant.
Except for the almost tonal color scheme, the layout remains unchanged. At the top-left corner is a dial to toggle between systems or turn the device off. It’s easy to miss at first, but the visual layout of the primary face buttons also shifts accordingly. Adjacent to the left is another dial to swap the control stick’s functionality.
You’ll also notice a slider to enable Bluetooth or 2.4 GHz wireless connectivity. The latter requires users to connect the included USB-A dongle, which is cleverly hidden in a special compartment at the top flank of the Arcade Stick. Likewise, inside is a USB-C port to hook up the unit via cable for latency-free performance.
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Images courtesy of 8BitDo
