We're hesitant to say it should be tournament legal, but we're having a hard time finding much of a case against it

While at Combo Breaker this year, the Paradise Arcade Shop booth showcased their new Magenta programmable joystick, and seeing it in action kind of blew me away.

Essentially the Magenta allows you to change the size and sensitivity of your joystick inputs. This includes things like altering how far you need to actually move the stick before it reads a direction, or manipulating the size of the area where your stick will read "down+forward" as opposed to just "down."

It's easier to understand when supplemented with video, and Mr. BornFree actually captured some footage of one of the Paradise reps explaining and showing the Magenta in action, which you can view after the jump below.

One of the first topics that organically comes up in conversation here asks whether or not this technology should be tournament legal. The ability to make such changes almost immediately raises red flags and brings to mind the realm of cheating.

Considering the Magenta doesn't seem to be as severe an alteration as tournament legal products like the Hitbox arcade stick, it's not too hard to envision these becoming more mainstream.

One could also compare this to the regularly seen macro buttons that input all three punches or kicks at the same time. Though surely met with some hesitation at first, triple punch and triple kick macros are now widely accepted as routine.

You can order your own Magenta at Paradise Arcade Shop for $99.99.