On Friday, peripheral manufacturer Mad Catz announced what in peripheral-manufacturer circles is a pretty significant get. The company, which famously paid $300,000 to not be involved in the original Guitar Hero, is now the “official global manufacturing and distribution partner for Rock Band music game peripherals.”
That means that Mad Catz, who has many years of experience manufacturing and selling peripherals — many of them for Rock Band — will be taking on a more direct role in future Rock Band releases, helping to develop, design, manufacture, and distribute controllers for Rock Band 3 and beyond.
If you ask me, this is good news. Mad Catz has been making solid, reliable peripherals for as long as I’ve been in this business, and their high-end Rock Band controllers are some of the best on the market.
Now, if they’d only tell us what’s new for Rock Band 3…
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I have always tried to stay away from MadCat products since the PS2 days, Their controllers never seemed to work all that good.
My wife loves her P-Bass, but I absolutely detested the telecaster. I cannot play a clicky strumbar anymore, it slows down my downstrumming ability. So glad I didn’t kick down 300 bucks since the high-end has the same strumbar. And the telecaster was small!! I gave it to a friend for free just to get it out of my house. Glad I got all the Beatles guitars, given this news….they are the superior guitars, IMO.
While I understand anyone being leery of Mad Catz given the generally shoddy quality of their past products, they seem to have stepped up their game for the Rock Band gear they’ve been making. I have their cymbal expansion for the the Rock Band 2 drums and they’re really fun and have held up to some bashing. I also picked up the full-size wooden Strat controller when it was on sale at Amazon, and it’s beautiful and plays really well, in spite of the clicky strum bar (not my preference). Neither item is perfect IMHO, but they’re definitely well made. I’d be curious to try the Telecaster, but have never seen it for sale except online.
Since Mad Catz is both a stupid name, and one with a checkered past for gamers, I actually think it would be worth the effort to rebrand the company with a new name and a logo that doesn’t look like it’s stuck in 1987. It would be a fresh start for the company that has stated outright that they’re working hard to improve the quality of their stuff. It will be very interesting to see the next generation of Rock Band gear under this new partnership. I hope Harmonix’ obvious knack for polish plays a part in taking some of the remaining rough edges of of the Mad Catz products.
Colin, I agree. I am one of the worried players out there. Here’s to hoping that Mad Catz can delivery quality products for RB3.
I’m also concerned. I think the RB equipment has been increasing in quality, and while I think it’s cool that the high end guitars from Mad Catz work well, I’m very hesitant to purchase anything from them that’s more budget or mainstream.
As long as the drums do not break after a week of use………….
While I do have a messed up Mad Catz wired 360 controller, I do agree that their RB products have been much more substantial. They’ve really helped the expansion of the music game experience. Even though they’re a bit louder than the new softer drum heads, I love my triple set of cymbals as they train me into performing more realistic drumming motions. Also, I know they’re basically 360-only RB1 drums, but I can’t believe their portable drum set hadn’t received more hype (grabbed one from Gamestop at their please-buy-this-we-aren’t-bothering-with-this-item-anymore price). At this point, I’d think space-saving would be a bit more welcome, not to mention that item makes GH5′s drum-line possibility a lot more viable.
I see reason for concern, but I’m hoping the only thing to whine about when results come will be the dated Mad Catz logo.