Wait what? You read that correctly, Mad Catz -- grown into the biggest peripheral maker in recent years -- has announced the formation of ThunderHawk Studios, a studio focused on developing a series of MMO flight simulator games to be published by Mad Catz. The first game is expected to launch in 2012.
Flight simulators are one of the most peripheral-intensive genres out there, especially now that the music game genre has lost the Guitar Hero and DJ Hero franchises. And there's not much point in a Dance Central peripheral, is there? So it makes perfect sense for them to get into flight simulators and popularize the genre to sell more joysticks, although the announcement of a development studio comes as a surprise.
Mad Catz also owns Saitek, considered by many to be the creators of some of the finest joysticks out there. At least, back in the late '90s when I still kept track of them. Maybe they can fill the void left by the popular era of Jane's combat flight sims, F-22: Air Dominance Fighter, F-22: Total Air War, Falcon 4.0, X-Wing Alliance and Freespace 2? Good luck to them if their first game is a World World II game that has to compete with the IL-2 Sturmovic series or Cliffs of Dover though.
Pssst ThunderHawk Studios, we could use a new F29 Retaliator. Zulu Alert! And set it in space while you're at it. Pretty please?
Maurice Tan Maurice Tan does his Associate Editing from The Netherlands in a reality-shattering time zone. After working as a university lecturer in Psychology and Communications teaching game studies and the merits of Keyboard Cat, he now spends most of his time posting news, previews, reviews, and features about industry stuff or all things PC and strategy. He is also a connoisseur of licensed games, as long as they have achievements. Likes
Deus Ex, Colonization, Mass Effect, TIE Fighter, and his iPod Touch.
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Contest:
8:30 PM on 05.31.2011 | 
Their sticks and HOTAS are decent and good for entry level. But flight sim vets go with CH Products and Thrustmaster. I'm a CH fanboy myself. :-)
MadCatz must be mad if they think they can compete with juggernauts like Rise Of Flight, IL-2 Sturmovik, Digital Combat Simulator, Wings of Prey, Flight Simulator X and fuckload of other simulators. and frankly i doubt they will make better or even comparable game to those.