Name: The Life & Death of Mad Catz [LGR Tech Tales]
Uploaded: 2020-03-21T16:12:17.000Z
Duration: 10 min 30 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Adverbs of manner

The brand unceremoniously thrust upon younger siblings

Often derided for subpar controllers that felt just as cheap

with them being responsible for all sorts of award-winning flight sticks,

One quarter of the entire game console aftermarket

And yet, it obviously didn't end well for them

since the company declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy on March 30, 2017.

where we take a look at noteworthy stories of technological inspiration,

the Prolific Purveyors of Plastic Peripherals.

Devices like Nintendo's Entertainment System

were leading the charge of the video game industry's

This caught the attention of a small group of engineers in Hong Kong

who saw this rapid growth as a great investment opportunity.

that third-party manufacturers could easily swoop in and lay claim

to underserved gamers with niche product ideas.

using their skills and connections in Hong Kong,

They spent the next two years laying the groundwork

for design, manufacturing, packaging and distribution

culminating in 1989 with the founding of Mad Catz, Inc.

There's seemingly no stated reason behind that name,

but their goal was to provide third-party products for video game consoles

at a low cost to both them and consumers,

and they accomplished this by outsourcing 60% of the work.

Manufacturing was handled by a firm in Shenzhen, China,

and the design and marketing was handled by a satellite office

This not only ensured they could manufacture the required electronics for a crazy low price,

but the American side of the business ensured they had an ear to the ground

eventually leading to the company being headquartered in San Diego.

Mad Catz's first product is tough to pin down precisely,

but two of them were these turbo controllers

These were sold under the High Frequency label at first,

which was the in-house brand for the Toys "R" Us retail chain in North America.

The way this worked is that the product and marketing were conceived

and the design was sent to their contracted facility in China

as an Original Equipment Manufacturer, or OEM, product.

This method meant that Mad Catz could develop their own designs in-house

and then sell it themselves under their own brand

or as a generic item to whoever paid to stick their own logo on it.

And while this didn't make them a fortune immediately,

it was enough to continue to grow the company throughout the 1990s.

that it was hard to ignore them when you went to a game store

while partnering with over 12,000 retailers worldwide.

And with the onslaught of new game consoles

set to release across the next few years on into the new millennium,

investors were eyeing Mad Catz with piles of cash in hand.

It was the Ontario, Canada-based GTR Group,

who completed the acquisition of Mad Catz on August 31, 1999

Mad Catz remained headquartered in San Diego, however,

and work quickly began on several new projects.

a device that sent 16 milliamps of electric current

to shock and temporarily immobilize players' fingers

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