Skip to main content

Gaming accessory maker Mad Catz files for bankruptcy, seeks to liquidate assets

#RiseUp with Mad Catz and Street Fighter V
Video game accessory company Mad Catz, known for its low-price gaming controllers, headsets, and fightsticks — as well as its work with Harmonix on Rock Band 4 — has filed for bankruptcy and for a motion to liquidate all assets.

All of the company’s directors resigned on March 30, and Mad Catz has already ceased operations. The first signs of trouble surfaced last year, when the company’s share value on the New York Stock Exchange took a dive down to just 30 cents, and CEO Darren Richardson resigned from his position.

Given the move to liquidate its assets, it looks like this will be the end of Mad Catz. There doesn’t appear to be any prospective buyers that would be able to bring it back from the dead.

“The board of directors has been advised by the company’s financial adviser and management that no viable strategic alternative in respect of  a sale of the company or other corporate sale transaction is being made available to the company by any third party,” Mad Catz said in a press release.

Rock Band 4, a return by Harmonix to the plastic instrument-based music game world, appears to have expedited the demise of Mad Catz. The game didn’t produce the revenue that the company had needed, and it experienced a year-over-year net loss of $3.5 million dollars. Earlier this week, Mad Catz was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange completely over an “abnormal” share price.

Though its early third-party controllers were typically the type of “extra” ones you’d keep around for when a friend came over to play Xbox, the quality of the company’s products did rise in recent years. Killer Instinct‘s official fightstick was produced by the company and received solid reviews, and a recent line of Street Fighter V controllers were created to replicate the feeling of a large fightstick in the palm of your hand.

Gabe Gurwin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…
Volgarr the Viking 2 will take you back to your Ghosts ‘n Goblins days
A viking slashes a tree in Volgarr the Viking 2.

Developer Digital Eclipse is working on a surprising project: Volgarr the Viking 2. The 2D retro sequel will launch on August 6 for PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

The news is an out of left field reveal. The first Volgarr the Viking game released in 2013 and was made as an ode to 1080s classics like Ghosts 'n Goblins. Despite being a small release, it sold over 1 million copies over the past decade. As revealed during today's Guerrilla Collective stream, the series is coming back with a new sequel by Digital Eclipse, the team behind this year's Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story.

Read more
3 Days of Play PS Plus games to try this weekend (June 7-9)
Key art for Streets of Rage 4.

June 2024 is shaping up to be a pretty great month for PlayStation players. Not only are we coming off an entertaining State of Play showcase, but a new Days of Play initiative surrounding all the video game showcases this month is bringing a lot of new PS Plus additions with it. Many of those games hit PS Plus this week, and three in particular stand out to us.

For owners of Sony's oft-neglected PlayStation VR2, the first game is one of its rare exclusives that take full advantage of the headset's eye-tracking by seeing how often players blink. The next is a new PS Plus Essential game that's a revival of Sega's classic beat-'em-up series for the modern gaming era. Finally, the last title is an atmospheric and eerie fishing game that should entice fans of Lovecraftian horror.
Before Your Eyes

Read more
3 first-party Xbox Game Pass games to try this weekend (June 7-9)
Gears 5 Kait Hero Close Up

Microsoft will hold an Xbox Games Showcase and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Direct. this Sunday. These shows will provide a much better idea of what to expect from Xbox over the course of the next year or two. That's really needed right now, as Microsoft has struggled to keep online discussions around Xbox positive as it went multiplatform with some games, laid off thousands of developers, and outright shut down the developers of Hi-Fi Rush and Redfall. Based on leaks and my personal expectations for the showcase, there are three games you can play on Xbox Game Pass this weekend to prepare for the event.

The first is the latest first-person shooter in a long-running series by id Software that might be getting a medieval-set spinoff. After that, we have the fifth entry in a sci-fi Xbox series that still looks fantastic on Xbox Series X/S even though it came out in 2019. Finally, you can prepare for Avowed with the latest RPG from Obsidian Entertainment, a satirical sci-fi game where player choice is critical.
Doom Eternal

Read more