If you read my post I am talking about the start of the recent trend. By trend I mean, of course more than one instance. I know there were other controllers released in the past, but a one off deal a hundred years ago does not mean its a trend. If this indeed was the start of a trend, I would expect a chain of similar releases leading up until now. Let me explain what I am thinking more clearly.
Street fighter 4 licenses its property to Mad Catz, which produces, among other things, its Tournament Edition fight stick, which has as its selling point the fact that it uses genuine Sanwa parts, to capture the arcade experience.. Yes there have been niche marketers that make arcade stick that have been around for a while, yes there have been controllers marketed with games before, but this is the first instance of the recent trend where you have a game with the marketing message being, the BEST way to enjoy this game is with this controller, which is what you find in an arcade. Then you have the Mortal Kombat Fight Stick. Its selling point is that it has genuine arcade parts. Now you have ANOTHER Mortal Kombat fight stick coming out that is being marketed with the DLC coming out this summer. Look the whole "arcade at your home" deal has been around forever in home console marketing, but there has been a very real, very recent marketing push where the game makers are saying, controls matter, and more specifically, arcade authentic controls matter. I never claimed that Street Fighter IV was the first time that arcade controls were EVER marketed with a game, rather my point is that we have renewed focus on genuine arcade controls, and this is being main stream marketed to console gamers. That I think is a rather new trend, it might be the recycling of an old trend, but its a recent trend in gaming, and as far as I can tell SFIV kicked off this latest round.