As a lifelong fan of the Virtual On games, I am happy to see that Tanita are re-releasing their TwinSticks. Despite the fact they now cost more than a PlayStation 5.
For reference, the Japanese pricepoint for the baseline PlayStation 5 that includes the disk drive is 66,980 yen. Whereas the Tanita TwinSticks cost 68,200 yen.
That’s a gaming controller that mainly works with two games released on the PlayStation 4. Specifically, that of A Certain Magical Virtual On and the Virtual On Masterpiece Collection (the latter containing three games). Some other smaller games do support the controller, as I will explain later on, but these TwinSticks are mainly meant for Virtual On games.
Now, I picked up my pair of Tanita TwinSticks when they first came out and they are amazingly well done. Full of Sanwa parts, they are arcade levels of quality and durability.
They are also fully able to be repaired, should parts wear out and break. The fact that a company such as Tanita makes these still makes my head hurt, as they normally produce electronic weighing machines, but I am certainly grateful for their work on this.
As for what’s driving this re-release, apart from demand to play the original Virtual On arcade games, I’m not really sure. Maybe there are plans to release the games natively on the PlayStation 5?
However, considering that you can use these TwinSticks and play the prior PlayStation 4 releases on the PlayStation 5 just fine, I’m not sure what’s going on here.
That said, Alice Gear Aegis CS Concerto of Simulatrix on the PlayStation 5 does also support these TwinSticks. Although, I doubt a tiny game like that would warrant such a re-release of an insanely expensive gaming peripheral.
One thing that would be welcomed is a proper international release of the Virtual On Masterpiece Collection. It’s a great set and contains the best versions of each of the classic Virtual On arcade games.
In any case, it’s amazing to see a series of games I have been playing since 1995 still have such a dedicated, as well as clearly very wealthy, fanbase.
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