Logitech’s recent line of gaming products includes mice, keyboards, and even a few racing wheels. However, it seems like it will be adding some new products to its lineup soon. The company struck a deal with Mad Catz to buy the Saitek brand and products for $13 million in cash.
Saitek’s current lineup includes flight and space simulator controllers such as the latest X-56 Rhino hands-on-throttle-and-stick (HOTAS) peripheral and even a wheel for Farming Simulator. The addition of Saitek to the Logitech G brand makes sense, as it would add more simulation-based products to the company's portfolio. At the moment, Logitech’s sim-based inventory includes the G29 and G920 racing wheels and the Extreme 3D Pro Joystick.
Mad Catz’s fortunes started to turn for the worse earlier this year. A day before its quarterly financial call in February, Darren Richardson, Thomas Brown, and Whitney Peterson resigned from their positions as president and CEO, chairman, and senior vice president of business affairs, respectively. The next day’s earnings call revealed that the change at the executive level was part of a restructuring plan to cut 37% of the company’s total workforce in order to focus on “lowering operating costs, increasing efficiencies and better aligning its workforce with the needs of the business.”
Mad Catz’s bread and butter was its partnership with the Rock Bandfranchise. In the third fiscal quarter of 2016, the company boasted a net sales increase of 114%, or $65 million, which was its second-highest quarterly net sales in history. Despite the high sales numbers, the amount of products sold along with the new Rock Band 4 game was lower than expected. In March, the company took a major hit when Harmonix, the development team for Rock Band, announced Performance Designed Products (PDP) as its new partner for Rock Band peripherals. The change in peripheral partners meant that Mad Catz was losing money more than ever.
For Mad Catz, the sale of Saitek means that it has some money in its pocket after its recent losses. As for Logitech, it’s an opportunity to expand its product line with new peripherals and gain an even bigger fanbase.