HORI Ace Combat 7 Hotas Flight Stick for PlayStation 4 - Officially Licensed By SIEA & Bandai Namco Entertainment

My original review was a one star due to the whole shipping ordeal that everyone preordered experienced. I received the product yesterday and I used them last night. Overall quality is better than some controls twice the price, feels great and great fit to the hands. My only complaint is that I wish they were a tad heavier weight wise. Other than that, these controls are great. They really shine in VR mode! Completes the whole feeling of actually flying the aircraft!

I've been hoping for a long time for someone to come out with a HOTAS for the PS4 especially for Ace Combat and well, here it is! It's a beautiful stick and throttle combo!

It's made well enough, no complaints there. They're light so without the suction cups the base of the stick lifts up, the bases of both are roughly 8"x6". The vibration, or "haptic feedback" is only in the stick and is focused more at the top of the stick than the center where most of your hand is. The rudder buttons are poorly placed, at least for me and my fingers aren't short, the buttons are directly under the center of your hand which can cause cramping or fatigue. The knobs do absolutely nothing, at least on PS4 though they do have resistance which may indicate a use on PC. There is a literal fake button on the throttle just below the switch labeled 1-2-3. That switch changes how the throttle behaves, switching the rudder buttons to accelerate and decelerate and the throttle forward and backward movement then controls the rudders when switched to 2- when switched to 3 both the rudder buttons and throttle motions control the camera and remove throttle and rudder control completely. There is a bit of a dead zone. There are two different directional buttons, one on the throttle one on the stick, the one on the throttle is turned on it's side so when you press what you think is up, you're actually pressing left. A dedicated Post Stall Manoeuvre button. The triangle and square button should have been swapped since the controller has square on the left, not on the right like the stick. The track pad, which resizes your minimap, is impossible to touch without removing your hand from the stick or throttle, so good luck making use of that in battle. The PS button doesn't turn on the console! Once it's on the HOTAS functions like a normal controller. It definitely takes some getting used to and you need to find a comfortable way to use it. I'll update in a few days once I have more time with it and can say if it's worth $200. *Update- it's not worth it. Huge dead zone and a complete inability to be precise. If there were no dead zone then precision wouldn't even be an issue. It's absolutely impossible to resize your map without taking your hand off of one of the controls. It's a novelty, it's a gimmick, it's not a controller for people serious about playing the game. No console HOTAS is worth the money, don't waste yours. You'll play infinitely better with a regular controller.

Pros: - It says 'Ace Combat 7' on it. Cons: - L1/R1 and L2/R2 buttons are mapped opposite. Throttle control is default mapped to L2/R2, but when i pushed forward on the joystick throttle, guess who starting Yawing to the right? This guy. Conversely, i decelerated the joystick throttle and sure enough, yaw to the left! Out of curiosity, i started pressing the L1/R1 underbuttons (which is yaw, and SHOULD be controlled by TWISTING the joystick left and right) and wouldnt you know it? The plane started accelerating! - As mentioned above in parenthesis, YAW on this controller is some soft-press underbutton (1 button, not 2) located on the part of the joystick that controls throttle. With previous joysticks ive used, the yaw control was mapped to twisting the joystick left or right. (In a real plane, the yaw is controlled by footpedals. twisting the joystick is really the better secondary option). - THERE IS A DEADZONE WITH THIS JOYSTICKS MOVEMENT!!! How is this a thing?!?! You want to hairline adjust your pitch or roll? Tough, this controller doesnt register movement until you've move the joystick past a certain point. So any smooth, hairline adjustments turn in to jerky, harsh changes in direction. Perhaps you can learn the nuances of this sensitivity over time, unfortunately the next problem makes this controller overall un-usable... - There. Is. Lag. For a WIRED controller. Its about a half-second lag between input and response. So those tiny adjustments to your heading? You'll NEVER hit your mark, because of the deadzone PLUS the delayed response, you basically just wind up rolling the plane over and pulling up into the ground. Other minor W.T.F.'s: - There's buttons on this joystick that have no function. None. Whatsoever. Which may not be seen as an issue, but when there are buttons on the controller that have been wired opposite each other (L1/R1 & L2/R2, im looking at you), you'd think the company would take the time to ensure the buttons that DO something actually DID what they're SUPPOSED to do. Instead, lets add a few more buttons for sh*ts and gigs and ignore proper functionality of the buttons that actually control gameplay. - No instruction manual with this joystick. Minor complaint, yes. But since the joystick came with a big rubber piece that is supposed to be attached to the joystick, i spent a few minutes trying to figure out where the heck that rubber piece was supposed to go. I found it, but I digress... There IS a QR code you can scan that is SUPPOSED to bring you to a link to download the manual. Instead, I'm brought to the companies website where I am asked if I would like to purchase this joystick. REALLY?!?! And upon intensive scouring of your companies website, guess what I NEVER found? The manual. - My final minor complaint: You can not attach these two pieces together to make them 1. Dont get me wrong, i LOVE having the joystick and the throttle control separate, it makes for the VR experience. But when im playing without the VR headset, i would prefer to have the controls resting on a table right in front of me. And if im playing aggressive, i would like to use both my hands to hold the whole controller still while im playing. When they are separate, i find quick movements make the joystick and throttle bases slide around. Forget those crappy rubber suction cups that come with it, even though i think the cost of making those might be more than the cost of the rest of this busted-a** controller. TL;DR: This controller is worth 25 bucks at most. Its absolute garbage and any money invested in a flight joystick controller would be better spent with ANY other option out there on the market. Avoid buying at all costs. PS. I dont EVER write reviews for products, but THIS one NEEDED to be written...

This is my third Hori Ace Combat Flight Stick. I've previously owned the PS2 and Xbox360 special bundles when they released for Ace Combat 5 and 6, respectively. Those that have owned the previous version will be glad to know they have not strayed far from the old molds. Throttle is still the same but now instead of the mini dpad joystick, there is a much larger one next to the left hand thumb. you can use this to select through the menu system. There is a button next to the dpad joystick which is L2+R2, for you to do the post-stall high G maneuvers. The little turn dials on the throttle are just for show and are non functional: JUST LIKE THE PS2 and Xbox360 version: no change. if you move the selector from 1->2->3 the throttle now changes to camera control. R3 button changes views (HUD/Cockpit/3rd person). The base of the throttle is a little longer and now includes the PS button to goto the PS home screen during game. In order to use the HOTAS as a controller, pull the Stick's red trigger button while pressing the PS button so the playstation registers this as a new controller. The Stick has an analog controller so you can move the camera around in whichever view you're in (cockpit/hud/3rd person). next to the thumb there is the R3+L3 to dump chaff/flares for missile evasion. The Dpad on the stick can only be used during menu selection. Trigger is guns, and circle is fire missiles. Triangle for next target, and square for special weapon change. The stick vibrates on afterburner, stalls, and explosions: the vibration is fairly strong and has a good feel to it. the touch pad on the base of the stick is nice and functions as radar change mode. on the top side of the stick, there is the share and options buttons. Opinion to the other reviewers on the grip about the hollowness: the bases on both the throttle and stick feel do feel light. that's because they dont have metal weights inside them like the old PS2 and Xbox360 versions had. That's actually not that big of a deal. once its placed on a desk, they are solid and the rubber feet prevent sliding. Suction cups are provided and i've used the suction cups successfully on glass/non-porous table tops and they dont move. so only if you plan on carrying this all the time, the hollowness is a non-issue. The other gripe i've seen is the 'sensitivity' or deadzone on the controller. YES. this will not be as precise as the dualshock controller, nor does it have the super sensitivity of a mouse. It does however provide the immersion that you want in a HOTAS system. Unless you're doing micromovements with the left analog stick on the dualshock controller, ALL THE TIME, the Hori system is fine for flying and lining up for ground strafe or air combat. It's about the same sensitivity as the Xbox360 stick and i dont see an issue. This works fine in VR as well, and really works well since now your head is now the camera angle and the HOTAS allows you to bank and follow where your head goes. It does getting used to memorize the buttons but after about 15 minutes, you know where everything is on both the Throttle and Stick. If you want to make a mount for this to a gaming chair, just reuse the slots for the suction cups. i intend on making it fit my Playseat Evolution. So why the 4 stars? the 1-2-3 slider on the throttle is too easily bumped into during flight and that turns throttle into camera control. which is super annoying. also, the box came with no instructions. Hori's website for the instruction from the QR code didn't work. No available mapping of the buttons native in the game, hopefully that will change with a software update since they support the other flight stick. the Distance of the cable that separates the throttle to the stick is only ~40 inches. if you plan on making this fit a gaming chair, some type of extender is needed and the connector seems like a phone-jack Rj11type connector. Prior version was a serial connector with over 60" and seemed much beefier. i'm afraid the cable might get snagged and rip out the phone connector to the base of the stick. They had over 10 years to prepare for AC7: they could have designed this wayyyyyy better.

After I bought this product I was scared seeing some of the reviews about PC. But, I had no worries playing war thunder everything works perfectly and I love it.

Most of these one star reviews are about the shipping and my advice is to ignore them. My stick showed up today and I am having a ton of fun with it. It feels very nice and ergonomic and really gives a good, realistic feel. The only thing I would say is the plastic is sturdy, but feels hollow. Otherwise a fantastic product and worth the wait! EDIT: I did experience a dead zone issue when playing, however it was minor when I put the setting on the stick on NOMAL (NARROW is too sensitive for me lol). Also the more I play, the less apparent it is. I feel like you just need to break in the stick. I also feel like HORI did this on purpose maybe because of wear on the stick over time, so this might be used to compensate (but I'll leave speculation out for the most part). Point is keep playing and break it in and keep it on NORMAL at least. EDIT #2: I've tried my own advice and the dead zone cannot be fixed without adjusting the software unfortunately... it's such a huge shame too because this has a better feeling than the thrustmaster in terms of button placement, and it's all spoiled because of the dead zone. FINAL UPDATE: This is basically unplayable. The dead zone (specifically the y+ axis. Y- is ok) is awful. How could they mess it up this bad?! They had 4 years to make this stick and this is what they did? I guess I shouldn't have judged a book by its cover. It really pains me to say this but... this is a major fail on HORI compared to their previous products. Especially when their previous products were mainly metal with silicon and plastic and had minor, CONTROLLABLE dead zone. I'm keeping this soley for the fact that it's a collectors piece. Also the only reason why this isn't a 1 star review is due to the fact that the asthetics are nice. However, asthetics aren't what makes a product good. Really poor show from HORI and also a lot of trust from a loyal customer is now gone.

I got this a week ago for my PS4 pro and my Gaming PC i built. This works just the way i like when playing any of my Flying or Mech games. I would highly recommend this to anyone wanting something that feels true to flying