Peripheral company halts operations as it enters liquidation process

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Mad Catz is being put down. The beleaguered peripheral maker today announced that it has ceased operations and filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy “to initiate an orderly liquidation of the assets of the Company.”

“Regrettably and notwithstanding that for a significant amount of time the Company has been actively pursuing its strategic alternatives, including various near term financing alternatives such as bank financing and equity infusions, as well as potential sales of certain assets of the Company or a sale of the Company in its entirety, the Company has been unable to find a satisfactory solution to its cash liquidity problems,” president and CEO Karen McGinnis said. “The Board of Directors and management would like to acknowledge the outstanding efforts of the Company’s employees in support of its business, especially during the time that the Company faced financial difficulties. The Company would also like to thank the vendors and professional service providers who have supported the Company’s efforts during this time.”

McGinnis and the rest of the company’s officers and directors resigned yesterday. Mad Catz’ board of directors agreed to voluntarily begin the bankruptcy proceedings after determining that there was “no viable strategic alternative” with no possible sale of the company emerging and no willingness on the part of its lenders to increase credit lines. PricewaterhouseCoopers has been appointed as the trustee to handle the company’s estate.

Mad Catz Interactive’s roots trace back to the early ’90s. While it spent most of its existence as a manufacturer of gaming peripherals like mice, keyboards, and gamepads, it expanded into gaming headsets with the acquisition of Tritton and in recent years had invested in publishing. Unfortunately, its decision to co-publish 2015’s Rock Band 4 with developer Harmonix did not pay off. Shortly after the game’s launch, the company’s chairman of the board, CEO, and general counsel all resigned. The next day, it announced plans to restructure the company and lay off 37% of its employees in the process, and would later underscore the entire Rock Band 4 endeavor as “incredibly disappointing.”

The following year has seen a continuation of bad news for Mad Catz, with the company selling off its Saitek line of flight sticks and steering wheels for less than half of what it acquired the division for a decade ago, and more recently being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.

Media Create data puts four-week total ahead of PlayStation 4

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Nintendo’s Switch console has now sold more than 500,000 units in Japan, according to data supplied by Media Create.

As noted by DualShockers, Media Create’s weekly sales data indicates that the Switch reached 519,504 sales in four weeks. Last week’s sales (ending March 26) approached 80,000 units, a marked improvement on the 50,000 sold in the prior week.

The Switch has passed 500,000 sales in Japan faster than PlayStation 4, which needed seven weeks to hit the milestone. It should be noted, though, that Sony’s market-leading console didn’t achieve the same level of success in Japan it did in other parts of the world.

Nintendo still hasn’t released official sales figures for the Switch, though there is abundant evidence that its performance to date is more than satisfactory. In the week following its launch, the company said that it had broken internal sales records in Europe and the Americas, and there were credible reports that production of the Switch was set to double from 8 to 16 million units in the next fiscal year.

Earlier this month, SuperData put global sales at 1.5 million units, with 89% of owners also buying a copy of the rapturously reviewed Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

In his most recent editorial, our own Rob Fahey credited the Switch with a “great launch,” but acknowledged that the available performance data so far offers few lessons for those wondering about its longer term future.

“We’ve got nine months of shipments to watch and evaluate – to see what audiences Nintendo is appealing to, whether demand remains high, and whether the launch of titles like Mario Kart and Splatoon 2 can really drive the console forward,” he said. “Though there’ll no doubt be crazy speculation around each set of numbers, it’s the overall picture that’s important, and it’s only months of data that’ll really give us a sense of where this console is going.”