Mad Catz paid $300K to miss out on Guitar Hero’s success

Oh, Mad Catz. Does your ignominy know no bounds? The accessory manufacturer, whose name has long been synonymous among gamers with inferior peripherals — sturdy FightSticks aside — recently admitted to a decision that looks rather silly in hindsight. Darren Richardson, the company’s president and CEO, told Kotaku that Mad Catz could’ve been a part of the Guitar Hero phenomenon from the start: it was set to make an Xbox version (or presumably, its guitar controller) of the original game, which launched exclusively on the PlayStation 2 in November 2005.

However, due to a legal battle with Konami (whose GuitarFreaks games directly inspired Guitar Hero), Mad Catz paid $300,000 to extract itself from the contract. That left Harmonix and RedOctane to jointly develop the PS2 game that would go on to sell over 1.5 million copies and spawn a sequel that moved nearly twice as many units. Of course, this all happened before Activision acquired RedOctane and the Guitar Hero name, while Viacom bought Harmonix, who then created Rock Band.

“Everyone else made hundreds of millions and we paid money to not be a part of it,” lamented Richardson. Indeed, Activision and Neversoft are swimming in money vaults, Scrooge McDuck-style, while Mad Catz keeps pumping out awesome-looking arcade sticks. But then, don’t feel too sorry for Mad Catz — they’ve made a nice business out of producing Rock Band peripherals, like this crazy $299.99 wooden Fender guitar controller.

The Company That Paid $300K To Not Make Millions On Guitar Hero [Kotaku]