Introduction: How to Change the Restrictor Gate/plate on Your Joystick

By Anomaly Arcade Sticks
About: This is Anomaly Arcade Sticks. I make custom wooden arcade sticks, as well as sell custom accessories, and modding services. www.AnomalyArcadeSticks.com

Restrictor gates change the area of space that your joystick can move. Sometimes changing your plate may help you depending on how you play.

By default most joysticks come with a square gate, in this tutorial I will show you how to swap them with an Octagonal gate. - For both Sanwa and Seimitsu joysticks.

How it works

An example would be retro games, some retro games only allowed you to move left and right, such as Galaga, the plate in the joystick just had a horizontal opening. Pac Man on the other hand let you move only up, down, left, right, the plate inside was the shape of a cross. (Side note - you can actually find gates like those for modern day joysticks, if you are totally into retro gaming)

Whats this mean for fighting games

Octagonal - If you have troubles with quarter circles, or you just switched to joysticks, you may want to give an octagonal gate a chance.

Square - From what I've noticed people that play with charge characters prefer square gates because it is easier to hold charge while doing other moves, and preforming a combo.

Circle - Good for 360 degree characters, like grapplers, from what I've noticed it makes it hard to do other movements.

Overall - It comes down to personal preference, but I think its good to give other gates a try if you continuously drop/mess up your directional inputs with your current one.

Supplies Needed -

For Seimitsu -

  • Seimitsu Octagonal Gate www.focusattack.com
  • Philips head (star) screw driver
  • The type of screw driver needed to unscrew the top or bottom of your arcade stick

For Sanwa -

  • Sanwa Octagonal Gate www.focusattack.com
  • The type of screw driver needed to unscrew the top or bottom of your arcade stick

Step 1: Remove the Default Gate and Put on the New One

1. Open your arcade stick, there are many different types, most unscrew from the top or the bottom. If you search for a break down of the stick you should find the instructions.

Sanwa Stick

  1. Push the first two tabs while lifting the gate as shown in the image 1, then the third, and the forth tab.
  2. The gate will come off and you will see the image 2
  3. Then line the tabs with the new gate and push it on. You're done.

Seimitsu Stick

  1. Unscrew the 4 screws as seen in image 3.
  2. Pull off the gate and it should look like image 4.
  3. Screw on the new gate.

Additional info

  • You can rotate the inside of the gate so that it has a different angle, for instance you can rotate the square so that it is a diamond. This is mostly good for games with just up, down, left, right. See image 5