I'm a professional

This is another one of those public service announcements. I'm a big fan of Hori products, and recently have been getting serious about their arcade sticks. Since I just got Tekken on the PS3, and Mushihime is coming next week for the 360, I decided to go all out and pick up a Real Arcade Pro for each system. In addition to the vanilla RAP sticks, Hori has available a special edition for each system using 100% authentic arcade components, from the biggest names in arcade hardware, Sanwa and Seimitsu (PS3 and 360 respectively.) I've been down on them in the past for their thin 360 support, as well as their stock allocation, especially overseas (which up until recently was non-existent). It looks like they're doing the right thing, and making a real effort these days, not the least of which is their official web store. While the selection is small, it offers the core products for each system currently at the forefront of gaming (sorry, no PS2 RAP's for you). By far the biggest surprise is that the special edition RAP sticks are offered for sale to Americans, for reasonable prices. No more Paypal-ing shady forum denizens $350 for a box to arrive a month later. You have my moral, and most importantly, financial support Hori USA. Both, SE and SA RAP's for under $300 shipped. Hells yeah. The biggest reason I made this post was because my invoice number was 7. Hori is open for business people, buy, buy, buy. I expect to see triple digits before the year is up.

Shipping notification: I placed the order at around noon, and got a shipping confirmation by 4 PM. So far this experience has been outstanding. Especially after having cancelled an order for the exact same thing from a third party vendor this morning. Moral of this story: buy direct.