Mad Catz lays off 37% following reports of underperforming Rock Band 4 [Update]
Mad Catz is in a strange place, as its seen its sales increase since last year, but because it produced too much Rock Band 4 hardware, the company is now finding itself with tremendous losses.
Update: The layoff figure was originally posted at 63 percent. However, the language of the earnings report ("The plan consists of a reduction in the number of positions across the organization equal to approximately 37% of the total workforce and includes changes at the executive level.") indicates that the reduction figure is actually 37 percent. The headline has been updated to reflect this.
Original story: After most of its executive board abruptly resigned yesterday, the gaming world braced itself for the worst from game publisher/hardware manufacturer Mad Catz. And as expected, the news coming out of today's third quarter earnings report was not good. So the hammer has fallen on a large chunk of the company, with reports coming in that 63 percent of its workforce has been laid off.
Gamasutra has issued the report on Mad Catz's mass layoffs, citing that the company is aiming for a massive restructuring plan. Mad Catz is currently in the midst of a big hardware push, as it prepares to release new arcade sticks for next week's Street Fighter V.
However, the massive losses undergone in Q3 can largely be attributed to underperforming sales from Rock Band 4, which the company took a chance on publishing late last year. The company's sales have actually improved 114 percent year-on-year, but there's a big problem in regards to the overmanufacturing of both the software and the substantially expensive hardware. Because RB4 sold relatively poorly, retailers have been desperate to get rid of the excess inventory that's eating up precious real estate on sales floors. That has led to substantial discounts and, as a result, has eaten away at any profits, taking Mad Catz deep into the red.
The low Q3 numbers are also being attributed to low demand for audio and PC hardware in both European and Asian markets.
-
Ozzie Mejia posted a new article, Mad Catz lays off 63% following reports of underperforming Rock Band 4
-
-
Ouch. Well, RB4 was kind of a bad idea out the gate.
I don't want any more plastic instruments. Already have two drum sets and three guitars thanks to GH world tour on PS3 and Rock Band on 360.
I don't want to lose all my DLC I bought on 360 version when going over to PS4. May be unreasonable for me to expect DLC to transfer from XBL to PSN, but it's still a real problem and I guarantee a lot of people who went 360 last gen and PS4 this gen are in the same boat.
I don't really want to buy a sequel that has less features than the game before it either. No keyboard support? No online multiplayer? Not to mention the set list is very sparse when it comes to metal, which was a big reason I played rock band.
Kinda sucks that RB4 did so badly but it really didn't need to even come out.-
I got Rock Band 4 without reading too much into it, and I was really surprised to learn that they did not include online multiplayer this time around. It's a huge oversight, as people like me only have a friend or two over and like to fill out the band online. I was hoping that this was a serious resurgence of the genre, but this really looks like a quick cash-in opportunity that will kill the genre for good.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Another developer created a free driver but it's up to other developers to implement it.
https://skullgirls.com/2015/05/lab-zero-ps3-fight-stick-technology-faq/
I don't know if that's what is used in SF5 though.
-