Mad-Catz goes bankrupt

MarkVI said:
Madcatz really was schizo. Their non-fightstick peripherals in general weren't worth anything, but I still use my original TE stick. For those saying "Madcatz didn't make it, those are Sanwa parts," Madcatz marketed them as containing Sanwa parts. It's not like they were trying to hide it, it was the main selling point. Those original TE sticks were so good and cheap it made it awfully tough to justify a custom stick. It cost as much to make it yourself as to just buy the Madcatz. I own an Hori VLX as well and use it on the couch, but the form factor of the Madcatz is perfect for traveling or for sitting at a computer.

I hope I never see another Madcatz SNES, N64, or PS peripheral again, but I'll miss their presence in the fightstick market.
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Agreed. I will never argue with someone's preference for one brand or another for a given task but, IMHO, nobody has a better fightstick than the TE and TE-2.
 
zamardii12 said:
Yeah. The strangest controller I ever bought was back when I got Mario Kart on Nintendo 64 was this thing. Not a MadKatz controller (was made by a company called Performance). I remember that surprisingly this was a great controller to use with Mario Kart. That wheel at the top was turn-able like one of those controllers for a RC car or something. I used it quite a bit.

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ultraracer64.jpg



As far as Mad-Catz goes... the worst controller and last controller I remember using of theirs was this one I bought for the N64 a long time ago. Was a massive piece of shit.
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man I had that thing. I hated it and it sucked ass for the lamborghini racing game I had (sick game btw). If I remember correctly the wheel only turned about 20 degrees in each direction and it was just awkward pressing a button with one hand and holding the wheel with the other.
 
So many people mentioning this word I've never heard before.

WTF is a fightstick?

I'll have to google it...
 
Good Riddance. The last piece of equipment I had form them was a Steering Wheel and Pedals for a PC.

It worked... but was not very good build quality wise.

Never saw anything of theirs I even would consider purchasing after that.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
So many people mentioning this word I've never heard before.

WTF is a fightstick?

I'll have to google it...
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A fightstick or fight stick is a controller for fighting games. They used to be called arcade sticks, but seeing as arcades have been dead for several years the term didn't really fit anymore so the FGC (fighting game community) adopted the term fightstick.
 
Derangel said:
A fightstick or fight stick is a controller for fighting games. They used to be called arcade sticks, but seeing as arcades have been dead for several years the term didn't really fit anymore so the FGC (fighting game community) adopted the term fightstick.
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Huh, "Fighting Game Community" I had no idea that was a thing. I havent played a fighting game since I had a NES in the late 80s...

Actually, I take that back.. I just remembered this gem:

One-must-fall-cover.jpg
 
XenIneX said:
Technically, that was Saitek, who Mad-Catz recently sold to Logitech ...
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Came here to say this ^^^ It's interesting how they sold the brand to Logitech for $17 million less than they paid originally.

I strictly used Saitek for flight sticks and was bummed when MadCatz bought them - definitely excited to see what Logitech can do. I was also bummed when MadCatz bought Tritton audio in 2010. I'm still rocking one of the original AX Pros!

The one product I really enjoy from MadCatz is the MMO7! It's very programmable for gameplay and modular for comfort.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Huh, "Fighting Game Community" I had no idea that was a thing. I havent played a fighting game since I had a NES in the late 80s...

Actually, I take that back.. I just remembered this gem:

One-must-fall-cover.jpg
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Ha! I remember that game...so, so bad. Fighting games are still very much a thing. They showed EVO (the biggest fighting game tournament) on ESPN2. It pulls arena-filling crowds, too. Eleague Street Fighter 5 is on TNT. Twitch's fighting game channels are hugely popular. It isn't quite like the 90's, but there's a bit of a resurgence in the genre. It isn't Starcraft or LoL, but it's big.

Thing is, unlike the 90's, it's not like fight sticks are normally available at stores. They're specialized. As a result, a lot of players rock pads these days. The default Xbox and PS pads are common sights even at the highest levels. 10-15 years ago that would have been a rare thing.
 
mizer357 said:
Agreed. I will never argue with someone's preference for one brand or another for a given task but, IMHO, nobody has a better fightstick than the TE and TE-2.
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I think the top of the line Hori sticks have more solid feeling cases now, but I really think Madcatz raised the bar when they entered the market. Those original TE sticks have just about everything you could want and they are so easy to mod too.
 
I've never used Mad-Catz stuff so I can't say much about them, and I think going bankrupt is just them not adjusting to the times. They've been around for a long time so they should've had a strong foothold in the gaming peripheral market. Best aftermarket controllers that I've used are from Logitech, the old school clear blue with the crosspad (no analog), and Asciiware's Super Nintendo controller, oh god, that thing was perfect.
 

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mnewxcv said:
man I had that thing. I hated it and it sucked ass for the lamborghini racing game I had (sick game btw). If I remember correctly the wheel only turned about 20 degrees in each direction and it was just awkward pressing a button with one hand and holding the wheel with the other.
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You know what, you're right? I remember the learning curve for the wheel was quite large because the degrees in which it turned was quite small. But like I said all I used it for was Mario Kart and if I remember correctly that didn't last long either once I figured out how to hold the N64 controller (probably one of the weirdest controllers to ever exist).
 
mizer357 said:
Agreed. I will never argue with someone's preference for one brand or another for a given task but, IMHO, nobody has a better fightstick than the TE and TE-2.
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Which was manufactured by MadCatz of Sanwa parts (and this has been mentioned several times already, in case you've missed the posts).
MadCatz had basically no part in the making of that stick or the pushbuttons, which is why they were decent.
The same parts are readily available in most Hori sticks or you can buy the Sanwa or Seimitsu parts yourself and make your own stick (as I've done in the past).

Anything MadCatz made that MadCatz built was shit.
 
As others have said there was a lot of crappy stuff that MadCatz made in the 90s to the point it became a laughable meme; some variants of which are now posted above with their "Kill me, it hurts to live" Nintendo controllers and whatnot. However, as others have said they actually made some pretty high quality peripherals when it came to some of their sub-projects, as well as when they took ownership of a major HOTAS/flight sim controller company. Before we get to that though, I have to say even some of their PC hardware didn't totally suck - A few years back I was checking out pretty much every "MMO, fuckton of buttons" style mouse around and there was one made by MadCatz that, though not my favorite, was as good or better than lots of competing options from other companies and used a similar sensor etc.

That said, where MadCatz really turned their name around in a "I can't believe MadCatz was making this! Its actually among the best quality and first choice for many" way, was as others have mentioned their arcade-style joysticks aimed at fighting games (though also great for MAME or any other arcade emulation). They went through lots of iterations and had various price classes but were all well made and received from the FightPads (ie wired gamepads designed for said fighting games with 2 rows of 3 face buttons and an improved DPad), to their cheaper FightSticks which were as others mentioned rebrands of quality peripherals from Hori and whatnot, but where they really shined were those that had "TE" in the name somewhere which stood for "Tournament Edition". The "TE" FightSticks were made using the same layout and exact same parts as Japanese arcade machines, like the VEWLIX cabinet that would house titles like Street Fighter IV in all its iterations. This meant an arcade joystick and buttons from Sanwa Denshii giving it an exact "I'm playing on an actual arcade machine" feel, using the exact same parts. The TE chassis versions themselves were heavy and built to emulate the weighty experience of playing on an arcade cabinet too, so even with frenetic movement they felt solid. Furthermore, all FightSticks were designed to be moddable, but the TE versions really took that element to the max, with a built in compartment for a screwdriver and parts on some models, as well as easy connections (no soldering) for replacing parts. Lots of enthusiasts would mod their sticks for functionality (ie buying Sanwa parts and swapping the default Ball Top joystick to a Bat Top, swapping the Square Gate for an Octagonal Gate, deciding on concave or convex button styles etc ) or aesthetics (with easily replaceable artwork under the deck and MadCatz providing a template for custom artwork, tons of options arose. People often made it a point of pride to have custom artwork printed and then buy different colored Sanwa buttons/joysticks to go along with their new setup. This kind of thing can be easily googled if you want to see examples). Also, all FightSticks especially TEs were supported on one or more console as well as PCs - I have an older StreetFighter IV edition TE (that is more like the "TES+" layout) that has the full feature set of an Xbox360 wired controller for instance and the latest models even have Playstation 4 compliant touchpads - and are recognized as XInput / DirectInput or even as a Playstation 4 custom controller if you have the drivers on PC, making both modern game and emulation a breeze. There were also major quality of life features such as storage compartments for the USB cable, the aforementioned Xbox and/or Playstation functionality, and toggles that had the joystick detected as either Lstick, Rstick, or DPad as you wished. In case anyone was wondering of their current offerings (Notice the detail between the Tekken 7 button layout being angled in one way while the TE2+ / TES+ button layouts go another way, both replicating each cabinet's style!) check out - http://www.madcatz.com/fightsticks/

In short, the Fightsticks but especially the TE models were REALLY well designed. I think it isn't fair to not give MadCatz credit because they used Sanwa parts and whatnot. They could have used crappy chinese junk like so many off brands you can pick up on Amazon, but they decided to design joysticks for a notoriously picky enthusiast community and knew they had to go all out using the best parts and making them accessible, modifiable, and all in all well designed. They also kept them somewhat reasonably priced too, with many of their TE entries ranging around the $150-200 mark, when some of the few niche custom options around at that tier cost twice as much. I This made them the go-to stick for both major fighting game enthusiasts (ie those who hang around the Shoryuken forums and whatnot, going to competitions like EVO) as well as accessible to even thei casual players who were getting back into the fighting game renaissance of the past several years with titles like Street Fighter IV and V (and all their iterations), Tekken, Marvel vs Capcom, BlazBlue, GuiltyGear, as lots of indie titles like Skullgirls. MadCatz lead in the market is the only reason we have many other competitors, like those sticks made by Razer (which many feel are "also-ran", but not up to the same quality level as the FightStick TE products). Its worth noting that FightStick TEs have gone through many iterations, each with custom default artwork etc... to the point that "old" models are often sold as niche collector's items at prices WAY above what they would be when they were the latest variant. For instance, I just saw a Sanrio crossover promotional stick that is now being sold for $600 by some third party, and even older StreetFighter vs Tekken sticks are in the $300+ range, but this is not in line what the MSRP or average market price of these sticks used to be. For new buyers don't be daunted, check out the current model pricing (which is around $200 for TES+ and $250 for TE2+ I think) to get your bearings before making a decision!

I should also take a moment to say that MadCatz also owned Saitek, the peripheral maker for flight sim hardware like Hands On Throttle and Stick (HOTAS) joysticks and whatnot. Saitek was somewhat independent of MadCatz and their hardware was well regarded when it worked, but for the price sometimes people ran into quality control issues. Still, in the ultra-niche market of flight sim hardware they were one of the few offerings out there and all the others had their own issues in different way (ie CH products and until recently Thrustmaster rarely updated their lineup , and that Russian company who's name I forget made ultra expensive high quality stuff but had a low production rate leading to a waiting list, etc..). Regarding StarCitizen, Saitek was the only company that would be willing to build space sim hardware from scratch with the kind of quality and modification options that CIG wanted, especially on the high end prototype. Eventually Saitek was sold en masse to Logitech a few months ago, where the company has continued, but it is one reason that Star Citizen's joystick project was set back as previous custom contracts would all have to be renegotiated and whatnot. Ultimately many are hoping that Logitech will help Saitek with their weak points much like MadCatz tried to do, like QA and returns will benefit from Logi's ecosystem.

Ultimately MadCatz was an usual contradiction of bottom of the barrel "kill me, it hurts to live" controllers in the 90s , some midding quality PC peripherals later (like when they bougth Tritton headsets), but they also were responsible for near single-handedly knocking the arcade fighting stick market wide open by making a no-compromises high quality product (made to be modifiable no less!) that nobody thought would ever break out beyond an uber-select niche. I can only hope that especially their FightStick division will be sold off to someone who keeps that pioneering spirit alive and there is no lapse in quality!

P.S - someone said they recently announced a new TE fightstick? Are you talking about the Tekken 7 model? Or is there something I missed? I am considering buying a TE2+ in some form or another but it does seem that it, if it wasn't for the end of MadCatz, a new iteration would be coming soon...
 
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Xaeos said:
As others have said there was a lot of crappy stuff that MadCatz made in the 90s to the point it became a laughable meme; some variants of which are now posted above with their "Kill me, it hurts to live" Nintendo controllers and whatnot. However, as others have said they actually made some pretty high quality peripherals when it came to some of their sub-projects, as well as when they took ownership of a major HOTAS/flight sim controller company. Before we get to that though, I have to say even some of their PC hardware didn't totally suck - A few years back I was checking out pretty much every "MMO, fuckton of buttons" style mouse around and there was one made by MadCatz that, though not my favorite, was as good or better than lots of competing options from other companies and used a similar sensor etc.

That said, where MadCatz really turned their name around in a "I can't believe MadCatz was making this! Its actually among the best quality and first choice for many" way, was as others have mentioned their arcade-style joysticks aimed at fighting games (though also great for MAME or any other arcade emulation). They went through lots of iterations and had various price classes but were all well made and received from the FightPads (ie wired gamepads designed for said fighting games with 2 rows of 3 face buttons and an improved DPad), to their cheaper FightSticks which were as others mentioned rebrands of quality peripherals from Hori and whatnot, but where they really shined were those that had "TE" in the name somewhere which stood for "Tournament Edition". The "TE" FightSticks were made using the same layout and exact same parts as Japanese arcade machines, like the VEWLIX cabinet that would house titles like Street Fighter IV in all its iterations. This meant an arcade joystick and buttons from Sanwa Denshii giving it an exact "I'm playing on an actual arcade machine" feel, using the exact same parts. The TE chassis versions themselves were heavy and built to emulate the weighty experience of playing on an arcade cabinet too, so even with frenetic movement they felt solid. Furthermore, all FightSticks were designed to be moddable, but the TE versions really took that element to the max, with a built in compartment for a screwdriver and parts on some models, as well as easy connections (no soldering) for replacing parts. Lots of enthusiasts would mod their sticks for functionality (ie buying Sanwa parts and swapping the default Ball Top joystick to a Bat Top, swapping the Square Gate for an Octagonal Gate, deciding on concave or convex button styles etc ) or aesthetics (with easily replaceable artwork under the deck and MadCatz providing a template for custom artwork, tons of options arose. People often made it a point of pride to have custom artwork printed and then buy different colored Sanwa buttons/joysticks to go along with their new setup. This kind of thing can be easily googled if you want to see examples). Also, all FightSticks especially TEs were supported on one or more console as well as PCs - I have an older StreetFighter IV edition TE (that is more like the "TES+" layout) that has the full feature set of an Xbox360 wired controller for instance and the latest models even have Playstation 4 compliant touchpads - and are recognized as XInput / DirectInput or even as a Playstation 4 custom controller if you have the drivers on PC, making both modern game and emulation a breeze. There were also major quality of life features such as storage compartments for the USB cable, the aforementioned Xbox and/or Playstation functionality, and toggles that had the joystick detected as either Lstick, Rstick, or DPad as you wished. In case anyone was wondering of their current offerings (Notice the detail between the Tekken 7 button layout being angled in one way while the TE2+ / TES+ button layouts go another way, both replicating each cabinet's style!) check out - http://www.madcatz.com/fightsticks/

In short, the Fightsticks but especially the TE models were REALLY well designed. I think it isn't fair to not give MadCatz credit because they used Sanwa parts and whatnot. They could have used crappy chinese junk like so many off brands you can pick up on Amazon, but they decided to design joysticks for a notoriously picky enthusiast community and knew they had to go all out using the best parts and making them accessible, modifiable, and all in all well designed. They also kept them somewhat reasonably priced too, with many of their TE entries ranging around the $150-200 mark, when some of the few niche custom options around at that tier cost twice as much. I This made them the go-to stick for both major fighting game enthusiasts (ie those who hang around the Shoryuken forums and whatnot, going to competitions like EVO) as well as accessible to even thei casual players who were getting back into the fighting game renaissance of the past several years with titles like Street Fighter IV and V (and all their iterations), Tekken, Marvel vs Capcom, BlazBlue, GuiltyGear, as lots of indie titles like Skullgirls. MadCatz lead in the market is the only reason we have many other competitors, like those sticks made by Razer (which many feel are "also-ran", but not up to the same quality level as the FightStick TE products). Its worth noting that FightStick TEs have gone through many iterations, each with custom default artwork etc... to the point that "old" models are often sold as niche collector's items at prices WAY above what they would be when they were the latest variant. For instance, I just saw a Sanrio crossover promotional stick that is now being sold for $600 by some third party, and even older StreetFighter vs Tekken sticks are in the $300+ range, but this is not in line what the MSRP or average market price of these sticks used to be. For new buyers don't be daunted, check out the current model pricing (which is around $200 for TES+ and $250 for TE2+ I think) to get your bearings before making a decision!

I should also take a moment to say that MadCatz also owned Saitek, the peripheral maker for flight sim hardware like Hands On Throttle and Stick (HOTAS) joysticks and whatnot. Saitek was somewhat independent of MadCatz and their hardware was well regarded when it worked, but for the price sometimes people ran into quality control issues. Still, in the ultra-niche market of flight sim hardware they were one of the few offerings out there and all the others had their own issues in different way (ie CH products and until recently Thrustmaster rarely updated their lineup , and that Russian company who's name I forget made ultra expensive high quality stuff but had a low production rate leading to a waiting list, etc..). Regarding StarCitizen, Saitek was the only company that would be willing to build space sim hardware from scratch with the kind of quality and modification options that CIG wanted, especially on the high end prototype. Eventually Saitek was sold en masse to Logitech a few months ago, where the company has continued, but it is one reason that Star Citizen's joystick project was set back as previous custom contracts would all have to be renegotiated and whatnot. Ultimately many are hoping that Logitech will help Saitek with their weak points much like MadCatz tried to do, like QA and returns will benefit from Logi's ecosystem.

Ultimately MadCatz was an usual contradiction of bottom of the barrel "kill me, it hurts to live" controllers in the 90s , some midding quality PC peripherals later (like when they bougth Tritton headsets), but they also were responsible for near single-handedly knocking the arcade fighting stick market wide open by making a no-compromises high quality product (made to be modifiable no less!) that nobody thought would ever break out beyond an uber-select niche. I can only hope that especially their FightStick division will be sold off to someone who keeps that pioneering spirit alive and there is no lapse in quality!

P.S - someone said they recently announced a new TE fightstick? Are you talking about the Tekken 7 model? Or is there something I missed? I am considering buying a TE2+ in some form or another but it does seem that it, if it wasn't for the end of MadCatz, a new iteration would be coming soon...
Click to expand...

Yeah, Mad Catz "took ownership of a major HOTAS/flight sim controller company" and fucking ruined them. Saitek was a pretty high quality flight stick and sim controller maker until Mad Catz bought them. A few months after the purchase every single thing Saitek made was of vastly inferior quality. They broke, they felt like complete shit to use. Over the course of less than a year they took Saitek from one of the top peripheral manufacturers for sim titles to the bottom of the damn barrel. To give you an example of how badly they fucked Saitek: Mad Catz purchased Saitek in November 2007 for $30 million. September 2016 Logitech bought Saitek for $13 million. That's a $17 million loss in under a decade.
 
33422.jpg


Seen a few of these at work must be their last ditch effort to make something MAD.

If this was a Logitech G series mouse you would never hear the end of it.
 
Derangel said:
Yeah, Mad Catz "took ownership of a major HOTAS/flight sim controller company" and fucking ruined them. Saitek was a pretty high quality flight stick and sim controller maker until Mad Catz bought them. A few months after the purchase every single thing Saitek made was of vastly inferior quality. They broke, they felt like complete shit to use. Over the course of less than a year they took Saitek from one of the top peripheral manufacturers for sim titles to the bottom of the damn barrel. To give you an example of how badly they fucked Saitek: Mad Catz purchased Saitek in November 2007 for $30 million. September 2016 Logitech bought Saitek for $13 million. That's a $17 million loss in under a decade.
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I don't doubt that things went to shit for MadCatz in general and I'm guessing that a particular product's team was basically dependent on their own leadership's priorities (ie those running the FightStick division during the heyday clearly put user experience and quality at the top) , but did Saitek really get much worse because of MadCatz? I'm not sure how much independence they had during their MadCatz years, but I seem to remember that Saitek hardware always had the rep of "Was good for the money - when it worked" indicating QA issues and whatnot as their main weakness even prior to the MadCatz days. I had an X52 Pro HOTAS that held up very well for years until an unrelated event (ie getting stolen), so there were exceptions and whatnot. That is a hell of a drop in value, but it doesn't surprise me... if I was Logitech and I saw MadCatz on the downward spiral with few departments making great stuff, I'd pick up a solid brand on the cheap as well especially knowing that having Logi's assets/QA/customer service would deal with issues and if successful have basically absorbed one of the few venerable sim controller companies, especially with the recent interest in flight sims from Star Citizen to Elite: Dangerous to the Evochron series, indies, and more on the rise!
 
Xaeos said:
I don't doubt that things went to shit for MadCatz in general and I'm guessing that a particular product's team was basically dependent on their own leadership's priorities (ie those running the FightStick division during the heyday clearly put user experience and quality at the top) , but did Saitek really get much worse because of MadCatz? I'm not sure how much independence they had during their MadCatz years, but I seem to remember that Saitek hardware always had the rep of "Was good for the money - when it worked" indicating QA issues and whatnot as their main weakness even prior to the MadCatz days. I had an X52 Pro HOTAS that held up very well for years until an unrelated event (ie getting stolen), so there were exceptions and whatnot. That is a hell of a drop in value, but it doesn't surprise me... if I was Logitech and I saw MadCatz on the downward spiral with few departments making great stuff, I'd pick up a solid brand on the cheap as well especially knowing that having Logi's assets/QA/customer service would deal with issues and if successful have basically absorbed one of the few venerable sim controller companies, especially with the recent interest in flight sims from Star Citizen to Elite: Dangerous to the Evochron series, indies, and more on the rise!
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QA issues are not entirely uncommon among the niche peripheral companies, but Saitek's stuff always felt good. Some of their stuff had issues, others worked great. They built up a strong fanbase for a reason. I don't know if a lot of people left once Mad Catz bought them or if Mad Catz forced them to operate under much stricter budgets but everything just seemed to go down hill fast.
 
mizer357 said:
Agreed. I will never argue with someone's preference for one brand or another for a given task but, IMHO, nobody has a better fightstick than the TE and TE-2.
Click to expand...

Qanba has several that are better, Hori has several that are better.

The TE and TE-2 were the first fight sticks in the Street Fighter IV era that were worth a damn but they didn't stay that way for long. And while the competition grew and kept cranking out newer and better products, MadCatz kept cranking out the same mediocre sticks and just slapping different art work on them. Hell even Razer's stick is better than what MadCatz was cranking out.
 
Someone let me know when the liquidiation begins, I need some cheap fightsticks for my arcade cab.
 
You don't need fightsticks for a cab, they come with sticks installed straight into the control panel. You just wire up your JAMMA boards as normal and off you go....
 
SOAREVERSOR said:
You don't need fightsticks for a cab, they come with sticks installed straight into the control panel. You just wire up your JAMMA boards as normal and off you go....
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It's a ghetto cab I want to build with a retroPIE and a Sony PVM. Nothing serious, just something for casual fun when doing a get together. Going to put MAME on it.
 
NickJames said:
It's a ghetto cab I want to build with a retroPIE and a Sony PVM. Nothing serious, just something for casual fun when doing a get together. Going to put MAME on it.
Click to expand...

Ahhh, a ROM station. IMHO at that point ditch the CRT and just go with a quick LCD. You've already thrown accuracy out the window and the power savings/less problems are worth it. Plus you can run 16:9 games just fine. You can even get things like http://www.kraylixarcade.com/ to help with it. Plus you can slap your consoles in it, or even a PC, and have something for your modern games.

Speaking as someone who owns a couple cabs and has cranked out a few ROM stations ;)

Also fuck MadCatz for this, Qanba has native Android items see here https://www.amazon.com/PlayStation-Android-X-Input-D-Input-Joystick-3/dp/B01HSQE7IY, their parts are almost as good as Sanwas, Qanba is Koreas arcade company. If you want to go high end they have that as well... https://www.amazon.com/Qanba-Dragon-PlayStation-4-Black/dp/B01NGYL2NH and it's stock with Sanwa, they have middle ground as well.

Currently rocking 2x Qanba Dragons for the PS4/PC (really PS4 to be honest) for modern fighters and 2x Qanba Carbons for my retro emulation box.
 
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SOAREVERSOR said:
Ahhh, a ROM station. IMHO at that point ditch the CRT and just go with a quick LCD. You've already thrown accuracy out the window and the power savings/less problems are worth it. Plus you can run 16:9 games just fine. You can even get things like http://www.kraylixarcade.com/ to help with it. Plus you can slap your consoles in it, or even a PC, and have something for your modern games.

Speaking as someone who owns a couple cabs and has cranked out a few ROM stations ;)

Also fuck MadCatz for this, Qanba has native Android items see here https://www.amazon.com/PlayStation-Android-X-Input-D-Input-Joystick-3/dp/B01HSQE7IY, their parts are almost as good as Sanwas, Qanba is Koreas arcade company. If you want to go high end they have that as well... https://www.amazon.com/Qanba-Dragon-PlayStation-4-Black/dp/B01NGYL2NH and it's stock with Sanwa, they have middle ground as well.

Currently rocking 2x Qanba Dragons for the PS4/PC (really PS4 to be honest) for modern fighters and 2x Qanba Carbons for my retro emulation box.
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Well I also have a few retro systems I like to play on it so I like having the CRT around. This PVM looks amazing and the scanlines are so crisp! LCD just doesn't give me the same feel. I've been looking at those sticks, was just hoping to catch the MadCatz sticks down to like $50 or something when they start liquidating. Going to build this cabinet as my first project when I build my retro gameroom for my new home.
 
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Wow, I thought their fightstick market was keeping them going. I guess not. I use one of these because it's for nostalgic purposes.
 
XViper said:
Wow, I thought their fightstick market was keeping them going. I guess not. I use one of these because it's for nostalgic purposes.
Click to expand...
Nah, not for a while. As mentioned there's other companies that have had fight sticks available for people who want a "take it out of the box and plug it in" product that seem to sell better generally due to design(madcatz has released a dozen different versions of the same stick, mostly just different artwork) or cost. Those that are serious about it will end up going the DIY route or modding existing hardware, especially when you consider that the madcatz models were system specific and you can get aftermarket boards that will support just about anything from an xbox, to a dreamcast, or even an NES with modular cables.

At one point madcatz themselves tried to cater to the DIY market selling some dust shields, bezels in various colors, but the options were extremely limited compared to what you could get on ebay or any of the DIY fight stick shops.

And this is all just for a niche market in an already niche genre. Not a chance they were going to support the company on that. The biggest hit was probably the death of rockband/guitar hero with the dozens of crappy plastic instrument controllers already cluttering closets everywhere, and the Wii was long dead so they didn't have anyone to sell random things to snap wii-motes into for the motion control support(things like wheels and such). The QA and general lack of caring about the Saitek product line was painfully obvious as they couldn't be bothered to release a higher end product like Thrustmaster did(the x56 wasn't quite the leap in the direction that people wanted) or manage to compete with CH Products which seemingly hasn't released anything "new" in 15 years. A plastic pedal set, a junky controller for Farm Sim 2015 or whatever, and absolutely nothing that you could really consider "innovation" or even advancement.

Madcatz' bread and butter was making controllers that were notoriously crap, to the point where they were memes long before "memes" were a thing(as already mentioned by other people pointing out that they were always that cheap extra controller for when you had a friend over), with a weak attempt at making PC mice and keyboards, and buying a company that made headsets and turning those into junk as well.

I guess the only good thing to come out of this was Madcatz selling Saitek to Logitech a while back, because Logitech hasn't done jack in the flight stick market for years.
 
XViper said:
Wow, I thought their fightstick market was keeping them going. I guess not. I use one of these because it's for nostalgic purposes.
Click to expand...

Not really.

Hori has always been the big dog in the fighting game scene since the SNES. Each generation they've consistently put out the best joysticks featuring all Sanwa, Seimetsu or Hori parts. They've crushed virtually everybody out there, and for good reason. They've always had the best bang for the buck option and the best high end option. Their products have been easily modded, and they've always had 0 delay on their PCBs even when using converters to adapt to another console. Right up until a brief moment on the PS3/360 if you were playing fighting games you were using a Hori or a custom stick, end of fucking story.

MadCatz was always laughable. But MadCatz was the first out of the gate when Street Fighter IV hit and had official branding. So for a moment they were the only option out there. Even then MadCatz was always bigger in the US than it was in Asia, because Hori hit in Asia first, you had to import them into the US. The thing is, Hori kept coming out with better sticks and better designs. MadCatz just kept coming out with different face places and more officially branded shit. If you wanted a good fight stick you bought a Hori, if you wanted a fight stick with your character on it that was color matched to that character you bought a MadCatz.

Then Qanba came out of Korea and ate the rest of the "I didn't buy a Hori" market.

I bought two SIV fight sticks when they were the only ones, I bought two Hori RAP3s as soon as they came out. For SF V I bought two Qanba dragons and two Hori VLX. MadCatz was always the bastard child here.
 
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