Following a lengthy struggle with financial insolvency, gaming peripheral maker Mad Catz has formally ceased all operation. The company’s directors and officers have all resigned, and its assets will be liquidated. The company that spent nearly three decades pumping out PC and console gaming gear is no more.
According to an official announcement released today, yesterday Mad Catz made a voluntary assignment in bankruptcy, which in Canada means the company assigned all of its property to a trustee, in this case PricewaterhouseCoopers, which would oversee the liquidation of company assets in order to pay off debt. Along with the Canadian filing, the San Diego-based company also filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy in the US, which grants protection in order to facilitate the smooth liquidation of assets.
Mad Catz has been in money trouble for several years, with steadily declining revenues documented in the company’s financial reports. Last year the company laid off nearly 40 per cent of its workforce, following a major investment in developing peripherals for Harmonix’s Rock Band 4. In January, shortly after announcing a new line of Tekken 7 arcade sticks, the company received listing deficiency notice from the New York Stock Exchange, warning that it would be delisted if its stocks continued to trade at abnormally low rates. The company was delisted last week, as shares dropped to as low as $US0.04 ($0.05).
A source close to the company tells Kotaku that the sale or liquidation of the company has been a long time coming.
Anyone paying attention to the public financials of the company could see that the company was only heading one way. They have been bleeding cash and saddled with debt. The Tekken sticks you refer to 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.
Along with the resignation of Mad Catz executives, our source tells us that company staff have been locked out of their email and been sent home.
What likely happens next is the company’s assets and inventory will be sold off to the highest bidder, money from the sale going to pay off creditors.
Mad Catz was founded in 1989 and has been making PC, console and mobile gaming peripherals for nearly three decades.
Comments
20 responses to “Hardware Maker Mad Catz Dies”
Not sure if April fools or…
It isn’t April yet in the US and the NASDAQ announcement linked is dated the 31st. Seems this story is legit unless someone screwed up.
Wow… but then with the amount of dodgy stuff Madcatz put out over the years, I’m kinda amazed they lasted this long?
Yeah the quality of Mad Catz products was always questionable.
Player 4 in goldeneye or mario kart always had to go the madcatz controller. Poor bastard.
But… But… Turbo fire buttons!
Company gone = warranty gone = all products now dirt cheap?
Woooow.
I read the headline as if the company was just one person and they passed away.
I’m still half asleep apparently.
good riddance. The quality of their peripherals weren’t that great and the amount they tried to charge in Australia for the rock band 4 equipment was ridiculous
Actually, what about Saitek? Doesn’t Mat Catz own them?
Also wonder how HES’ll go, as their distributor down here :/
They did own saitek, but sold them to Logitech late last year.
Ah, right. I thought there was something or other that happened with them, but had forgotten all about it.
Yeah, I’m glad about this… Mad Catz was pretty crap, but I’ve always liked Saitek. Maybe Logitech will do well with it?
Yeah I’ve had some good Logitech gear as well so hope so, if they can at least fix the driver issue with x52 pro’s on windows 10 and USB3 I’ll be happy (if it’s not fixed already…. I should check). Mad Catz had released unsigned drivers from what I understand…
The local distributor hasn’t been doing much, as its been nigh on impossible to buy anything MadCatz for a while.
Fuck em. I had a mouse from them. Left click stopped working. Their support wouldn’t help at all. Support like that leads to people like me never wanting to buy their products again.
Guillemont still owns thrust master and both are still alive.
I recall similar happening to Guillemont some years ago… come to think of it who owns Thrustmaster now?
The big loss is probably their fightsticks. Their TE2+’s, until you went down the ‘make your own’, were probably the best tourney fightsticks on the market.