HORI is making a modular arcade stick for the Switch 2

HORI announced the Arcade Classic Pro for the Nintendo Switch 2 today, a modular arcade stick featuring swappable control units like a trackball and paddle. The official product page lists the controller at 39,980 yen (roughly $258), with a made-to-order pre-order window running until October 2. It ships in early spring 2027 and works via USB Type-A on the Switch 2, the original Switch family, and Windows 11 PCs.

This stick exists to make Arcade Archives games play like the real thing. Hamster Corporation has spent a decade porting hundreds of vintage coin-op titles to modern hardware, but many of those games used bespoke control schemes that feel terrible on a standard analog gamepad. HORI is solving that problem. You swap the hardware to match the game.

Arkanoid and bespoke controls

The Arcade Classic Pro ships with four different modules. You'll get a standard joystick with a mechanical gate switch for four-way or eight-way movement. You get a trackball. You get a paddle dial. You also get a yellow rotary loop lever, which is a joystick that twists in place to control aiming. The modules drop into two bays on the 50cm wide base, and you lock them in with an included hex wrench.

Taito was an early innovator in bespoke arcade control schemes. Space Invaders started the golden age, but by the late 1980s, the company was building dedicated spinners for Arkanoid and heavy trackball systems for Syvalion. When Hamster brings these games to the Switch, they usually map the spinner to the analog stick or the shoulder buttons. It works, but playing a paddle game on a Joy-Con is a miserable experience.

I'm genuinely curious how the loop lever feels in practice. If you want to play Taito's Front Line properly, you need a rotary stick to aim your gun independently of your movement. The paddle dial fixes games like Cameltry. A thumbstick simply cannot replicate the speed of a spinning dial.

HORI has been building arcade sticks since the Famicom era, and their Real Arcade Pro line is a staple in the fighting game community. This modular approach is a departure from their usual fighting game focus. The XInput support means it will work natively with PC emulators like MAME, which is where a trackball and paddle setup will see the most use outside of the Switch ecosystem.

The price is ambitious. At $258, it costs almost as much as a console. But for people who buy every Arcade Archives release, standard fighting sticks don't cover the weird mechanics of early 1980s arcade cabinets.

Wired only

This is a heavy, wired device. It weighs two kilograms before you even slot the modules in. It connects via a three-meter USB cable and uses XInput on PC.

HORI notes that the stick lacks modern console features. There's no gyro sensor, no rumble, no amiibo support, and no infrared camera. It doesn't wake your console from sleep. It just plays arcade games, and it requires a hex wrench to change layouts.