In 2007 Mad Catz purchased relatively venerable PC peripheral maker Saitek for $US30 million ($39.8 million). After nearly nine years of flight sticks and farming controllers, Mad Catz is passing Saitek over to Logitech for a mere $US13 million ($17.2 million).
Being a relatively old man, I’ve been playing with Saitek stuff since not long after the company was founded back in 1979. One of the first bits of hardware I reviewed came from Saitek, a flight stick of some sort. I liked what they did.
So did Mad Catz, so they bought the company in 2007, had them do some wacky shit, and basically reduced its sale value to a fraction of what it was nearly a decade ago. Mad Catz will be holding on to the keyboards, mice and other saleable items resulting from the original acquisition, while the brand and its line of flight, farming and other simulation controllers will be in Logitech’s hands, along with Saitek’s R&D department and equipment.
Karen McGinnis, president and CEO of Mad Catz, stated via official announcement, “After a thorough and deliberate process, we believe this sale to Logitech brings Mad Catz attractive and certain value for the flight, space and farm simulation line of Saitek products. We are pleased to find a company like Logitech that will lead Saitek into its next phase of growth and best support its strong acceptance within the flight simulation community while also allowing us to continue to leverage the world-class mice, keyboards and other products that were originally developed on the back of our acquisition of Saitek in 2007 and are now sold under the Mad Catz brand.”
Logitech feels like a much better fit for Saitek than Mad Catz ever was, so hopefully we’ll see big things coming in the future. I could use a nice flight stick.
Comments
7 responses to “Mad Catz Sells Saitek To Logitech”
Cool. All MadCatz seem to have done is churn out the same gear with lower quality, apart from the X56. Maybe Logitech can reverse that?
Mad catz has taken some huge financial hits recently, so this was was a bit of a fire sale.
I hope logitech uses the saitek brand to keep making whacky stuff, they’ve always been their best when handling the really weird niches.
And there was much rejoicing. Maybe now Saitek’s often excellent designs won’t be hamstrung by MadCatz shitehouse quality control.
It may be time to finally think about upgrading my X-52 to the X-56 now.
Can’t recall ever being disappointed in Logitech’s products
vanilla X52 or pro?
My pro’s going strong after a LOT of Elite (um, more than 7 weeks playtime). I’m going to hang on and see what newness they come up with. Revive the X-65 maybe! 😀
Vanilla for me. Pro was released a year after I bought it
Oh wow. I wonder what this means for HES.