Mad Catz pulled out of Guitar Hero before it hit big

by Richard Mitchell on Jan 8th 2010 6:30PM

Think of the original Guitar Hero, and two names pop immediately to mind: Harmonix and Red Octane. A third name that you might not be aware of: Mad Catz. Speaking to Kotaku, Mad Catz CEO Darren Richardson has revealed that peripheral maker was originally part of the Guitar Hero project. Mad Catz was responsible for the Xbox version, but eventually decided to pull out of the project thanks to a lawsuit filed by Konami -- which resulted in Guitar Hero being exclusive to PS2.

Furthermore, Mad Catz actually paid $300,000 to remove itself from the project, only to see it grow into the gigantic success it is today. Says Richardson, "Everyone else made hundreds of millions and we paid money to not be a part of it." Ouch.

Source

Tags: business, guitar-hero, harmonix, RedOctane

Reader Comments (16)

they wouldnt be mad otherwise.

or "Catz"

if i saw that madcatz was involved, i most likely never would have bought the original guitar hero.

A true plastic guitar connoisseur.

No he just didn't want shitty peripherals. Because that's what MC was all about that back then.

What do you mean "back then?"

speaking of guitar hero, is anyone surprised that there hasn't been a new game announced yet?

You mean like Guitar Hero 6?

guitar hero 6 is confirmed, and they've hinted at a band hero 2 and dj hero 2 for 2010 as well.

at the same time they've said they don't plan to release as many SKUs in 2010 as they did in 2009, so i wouldn't be surprised if those are the only ones you see.

that's right....3 installments in the "hero" franchise in one year is activision's idea of taking it easy.

didnt GH 5 like just come out?

@pete
we did have an announcement of guitar hero metallica on the GHWT disk

Thats probably a good thing. Think of how many controllers have been broken, not working, non functional...etic because of mad ctaz. I use to wonder how Mad Catz stayed around. I remember I had the Sega Saturn Mad Gunz....BROKE