Oratan sticks to cost 30,000 yen

The official Oratan 5.66 blog announced a few days ago that the official twinstick peripheral that fans have been waiting for may come into existence later this year. Specifically, Hori are going to release a pair of sticks sometime in November for the eye watering price of 30,000 yen. Considering that both the Saturn and Dreamcast sticks cost 5,800 yen on their respective releases only shows how out of whack this new price point truly is.

That said, if Hori were to use the Sanwa JLJ-PL2-8V's in the stick's construction that could help to explain the price tag (as they cost a cool 8,500 yen each). After all, Hori utilise a fair amount of Sanwa parts in their other sticks and using this hardware (instead of fashioning their own) would aid in the creation of the peripheral considering the November deadline.

There are a few very large catches to all this though; the sticks will only be available via pre-order and will only go into production once a secret number of pre-orders have been met. In addition, Sega have also been quick to explain that this deal with Hori is still being worked out. Final specifics on the sticks and the pre-order program will be made via a formal announcement at the June 13th "Virtual On Night" Xbox Live Park online event.

http://www.insertcredit.com/archives/002635.html