Here's to the crazy ones. Mad Catz just filed for bankruptcy, after decades of serving the gaming peripheral market. The company bet big on Rock Band 4, which didn't pan out as well as it had hoped, and now the company has been shut down, with its assets up for auction. Mad Catz might be best known for its "little brother controllers." You know, the cheap third-party controller you give to your little brother to play Mario Kart which inevitably fails in his hour of need while you drift your way past him to victory. Like this fragile hunk of plastic:
And this ergonomic sin:
More recently, Mad Catz has made a name for itself as the official builder of Rock Band accessories and some totally fine fighting game controllers, but the way I'll remember Mad Catz is as a company just crazy enough to try anything.
Like the SURF R controller for Android, complete with dual analog sticks and a QWERTY keyboard!
Or the modular RAT 1, which finally gets rid of that useless middle part of the mouse.
Oh and hey, check out this keyboard for the famed PC shooter franchise Call of Duty.
I don't know why this Dreamcast flight stick includes a track ball, but I'm into it.
There's a screen on this keyboard!
And let's not forget the time Mad Catz made a game console.
Or the actually-kind-of-amazing, more-than-meets-the-eye Lynx controller.
A lot of good times, and a lot of sad little brothers. I love you, Mad Catz, and I miss you already.