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Mad Catz, the well-known maker of third-party gaming peripherals, has ceased trading according to an official announcement made today.
The company announced that all of its directors have resigned and that its assets are to be sold off to pay its debts. PricewaterhouseCoopers will oversee the liquidation of the Mad Catz in Canada where the company is incorporated, and the company has filed for bankruptcy separately in the US.
Mad Catz had invested significantly in developing peripherals for Rock Band 4 last year and had announced a new line of arcade sticks for Tekken 7 in January of this year. Despite this, the company had been bleeding money and seems to have been facing problems for some time. In particular, a source who spoke to Kotaku on the matter claimed that, “The Tekken sticks… were simply a re-skin of existing product, in fact, other than a new Tritton headset, all product announced from the company over the last year has been a simple reworking of pre-existing hardware.”
Indeed, nearly 40 percent of its workforce were laid off last year and the company’s shares were more recently delisted from the New York Stock Exchange last week, having dropped to as low as $0.04.
Founded in 1989, Mad Catz has been creating PC, console, and mobile peripherals for over thirty years, including almost all Nintendo platforms during that time.
Did you grow up with a Mad Catz controller or racing wheel? Be sure to share your memories (good or bad) in the comments below.
Source: Kotaku
RIP, Mad Catz. I have all of my Gamecube and Playstation 1 game data on their memory cards. Can’t say much for their controllers, but I learned to stick with first party on those after a while.