So...what's the problem with the Konami Pop'n non-ASC?

yyr

I tried out Pop'n Music 9 at the Digital Life convention in NY. It was essentially my first experience with Pop'n and I enjoyed it, enough to consider possibly getting into the game. The controller I played on was a Desktop Arcade, which I'd assume is similar in size/feel to the ASC. It was great, but the $200 price tag is a bit much for my tastes.

IIDX is known for being expensive. But back when I started, I was able to find the official controller for $90 at yesasia when it was worth a bit more. Seeing the opportunity, I bought two, then sold one over eBay at a profit to cut my cost even further ($30). After finding a relatively cheap copy of 3rd Style, I was able to begin playing IIDX for only about $100.

I enjoy IIDX, but I don't play it constantly enough that it would have been worth it to pay more than $100 to get started. I expect Pop'n would be the same way. I don't want a crappy no-name 3rd-party job that'll break in 2 months, nor do I want to spend a fortune for a game I won't be playing 25 hours a week. The official Konami controller caught my eye because it's fairly cheap, but I hear people saying it's nothing like "the real thing." I know it's smaller, but I'm unaware of any other differences, as well as just how much smaller it is.

Questions: what are the differences between the ASC and the standard controller? Is the standard controller not worth getting? And, is a ~$100 budget realistic/possible for beginning Pop'n, or is it wishful thinking and little else? How would you use the $100?

~yyr
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Aaron_Kwok · Trick Member Joined: 15 Apr 2003 Location: Lubbock, TX

Ok, to answer your questions:

1. The Desktop arcade controller feels pretty close to an offical ASC, though a little bit different. The Konami home controller is only about the size of two buttons on the ASC. (i.e. if you put it on the far left side at the top on an ASC, it is about as wide as 2 buttons, and about as long as two buttons, so it's pretty small) It's not fun to play on the small one if you've played an ASC or something similar in size to an ASC.

2. With $100, instead of buying a controller, simply build one of your own, here's the website I used: http://www.shapermc.com/popn/popnasc.html

The controller I build feels really friggin' good, and for $100, you can't lose.

I don't know if you have the game already or not, but if you don't already, you're looking at about ~$175 to really get started on Pop'n music if you build your own controller. Well, I hope this helps you out. If you need to know anything else, just PM me, and I'll try to help.
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YoshiFan · Trick Member Joined: 28 Jul 2002

I have never used any ASC but I use the small Konami controller and I think it works fine. The main difference is that the buttons are almost flat compared to the dome shaped buttons on an ASC. The buttons are also a lot smaller of course. If you aren't used to the ASC or an arcade machine I don't think it's really a problem though. For me, I know I'll probably never play a Pop N Music arcade machine ever (I don't even have DDR in my area so I know Pop N Music will never be in the area) so I don't feel like I'm missing out buy just having the small controller. I think $100 is reasonable for what it would take to get into the game with a small controller. I think Play Asia is taking pre-orders for Pop N 10 with a new version of the small controller bundled for $95:
http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-8g-70-b6o.html (If that is a referral link, sorry, I just went into Yahoo and typed Pop N Music 10 because I couldn't find the item by searching on Play Asia, and copied the link from there)
which might be something to look into if you want to get everything at once and not pay a lot.

Tomo_kun · Trick Member Joined: 26 Oct 2003 Location: SE-WI.

http://www.ddrfreak.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=94787

I have some information there.
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CatchyPhraseOwen · Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 6:34 pm Post subject:

The Konami basic controller is tiny, but isn't too god-awful. The ASC is INFINITELY better, I own a Ransai, but the Konami midget isn't a horrible idea if you're just getting started. Your call.
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ninjafetus · Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 9:14 pm Post subject:

Other than being smaller and not having round top buttons, there's nothing really different.

In references to how it works aside from that, I think the small controller is one of the best controllers, in general, that I've ever used. It's super-responsive, there's a little click sound when you hit (that's not so loud it's annoying)... I dunno. I got an ASC because it's more fun to play on a big controller, but there's nothing wrong with the small one. It's great.

I was even thinking about getting one for use with O2Jam (instead of a Konami home IIDX controller) because it worked that well.
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Tomo_kun · Trick Member Joined: 26 Oct 2003 Location: SE-WI.

The 'ps2' version of the Pop'N Music small controller is going to have semi-domed buttons.
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yyr · Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2004 2:24 pm Post subject:

Thanks everyone for the info! I've decided that I'm probably going to pre-order PnM 10 in the bundle with the Konami controller. Best deal so far I've found is at yesasia, where it's also about $95 (before the $5 coupon I'm getting for having pre-ordered IIDX 8th). I figure I'm not going to be playing competitively or anything--it'll be just for fun, really--and it's within my desired budget.

This thread's served its purpose, so lock away. Thanks again.

~yyr
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