After a year in the wilderness, following years of struggles and a bankruptcy filing, gaming peripheral maker Mad Catz is doing a Lazarus.
In March 2017, gaming peripheral maker Mad Catz declared bankruptcy. After gambling big on Rock Band 4 – both producing the peripherals for, and contributing to publishing duties – the company was forced to shed huge swathes of its workforce, and all but shut down following that announcement.
Now, just in time for the Consumer Electronics Show 2018 next week, Mad Catz is back from the dead. Sort of.
Speaking to Kotaku, Alex Verrey, director of communications at the original Mad Catz – and now running PR for the ‘new’ Mad Catz via an agency – said of the announcement:
“They’re absolutely not going after the commodities side of the market. At the same time I don’t think they’ve got a huge interest in delivering once again $300 keyboards or mice that are really out of touch with what the market’s looking for.”
In spite of losing so much of its workforce, and some of its specialist divisions like flight stick-maker Saitek, the ‘new’ Mad Catz has retained some of its original design team. This was confirmed by Verrey, again speaking to Kotaku:
“This is why the new products continue the look and character of the old range so closely, these guys have many years of experience with the Mad Catz product line. At present, they have no plans to source any hardware. Everything is being designed in house.”
Sticking to their guns, Mad Catz have today announced three new peripherals – a new Rat mouse, Strike keyboard, and Freq headset – in a short teaser video, prior to CES 2018:
They still look a little like the ‘tumbler’ Batmobile, built out of lego and laser pens, though.
