Did Mad Catz Really Create "The Worst Video Game Controllers Ever"?

I certainly remember this brand from previous decades. I’m not sure if I was the victim of the 'friend controller', but ive long had an aversion to third party inputs. Ive imported some from japan that looked interesting and promising but most of them are in the gaming miscellaneous pile now. Currently I’m using the 8bitdo M30 for most things and I’m mostly happy with it.

I recently bought an official Nintendo branded GameCube memory card to replace my Mad Catz card which has been flaking out for a bit. 2 corrupt save files and frequent “cannot read memory card” errors. I suppose nearly 20 years of service is pretty commendable, but I now feel better with my Animal Crossing town living on official memory.

I was one of the rare people who actually owned a good product from the old Mad Catz: The Street Fighter IV Tournament Edition arcade stick. I bought two of them in 2009 and gave one to a friend of mine who let me stay with him for a while after a breakup. We both still own them and he's modded his to support newer consoles, while I still use mine on PC. They were built like tanks using real arcade components and were made in collaboration with Capcom. Now, they cost almost $200CDN each at the time so needless to say, they weren't aimed at the budget market like most Mad Catz products, but it did show that they were capable of building quality stuff if they cared to try.

Being at a mate's house for some multiplayer gaming used to be like lining up to pick football teams in the playground: no one wanted to be the last pick, or in this case the one who got last pick of the controllers and was lumbered with the third party controller that felt like it had toffee in the controls from day 1.

From what I recall of Mad Catz controllers they were either atrocious or serviceable, with nothing in between.

it's wild what a 180 third party controllers have done. back in the day i used to have to pry the stuck A button back up after even gently tapping it on my madcatz gamecube controller. these days i more or less only use 8bitdo and hori products!

@KitsuneNight This is my experience with them. We owned a Mad Catz Dualshock clone when I was a kid, and aside from it being small and odd, it worked just fine.

Also "To be fair, Maf Catz did clean up its act"--quality proofreading of this advertisement of a YouTube video.

Nope. Pelican did.

I had one of their OG Xbox pads which frankly, I thought was better than the pad that came with the console. Normally I wouldn't bother.

I've got one of the Street Fighter IV Fightpads for the 360 (not an arcade stick but a Saturn style six button pad with, crucially, a bigger d-pad than the official 360 controller). That was pretty good and still gets use as a PC controller thanks to being USB. So they weren't always terrible. Just usually terrible.

There was a time in my gaming circle where scapegoating one’s own controller after a poor performance would net a barrage of insults, unless one was holding a Mad Catz controller.
In that case, only sympathy was offered.
The new stuff is good though.

In the 90s Santa brought good kids Nintendo Controllers, Legos, and Stone Temple Pilots CDs, and brought the bad kids Madcatz, Megablocks, and Days Of The New cassettes.

With the amount of no-name Chinese aftermarket stuff produced these days WHO KNOWS if they are actually the worst.
@Poodlestargenerica But how can Mega Bloks be bad? They were prominently featured in the hit theatrical film Home Alone 3.

I had horrible luck with PS2 controllers in general, the official ones, I mean. It was the shoulder buttons sticking or the controller port was missing some pins so it wouldn't be recognized in the console. I went through 3 before buying two MadCatz controllers due to the cheaper price. While one died in a few months, the other one lasted me for nearly 2 decades until the X button finally caved in. They really were a hit or miss.

@InsaneWade I only ever had one Dual Shock 2 that came with my PS2, and I never liked it. The face buttons were not terribly responsive on mine. I think it was their pressure-sensitivity feature that was the problem. Most of my PS2 gaming I did with a PS1 Dual Shock.

I learned early on that third-party controllers were best avoided in the 1980s and 1990s. The few that I used were definitely inferior, though not completely awful. I don't remember which ones those were. It's funny how in more modern times, I've had more issues with official controllers as opposed to third-party ones. And then there's the joy-con drift.

As other have said Mad Catz's arcade sticks were really pretty good. I bought two Tatsunoko vs. Capcom fight sticks. I changed the PCBs in them and plan to add a couple of small side buttons. The first one I got already had Sanwa parts put in. I got the whole thing for an amazing price, especially because of the Sanwa parts. The generic parts they used really weren't that bad, and as far as I can tell, the non-Sanwa joystick is well constructed and can take Sanwa switch PCBs basically making it about equal at that point.

I bought a MOJO, but it was on clearance so it's okay. I just wanted to play around with it and see what it could do. I still have it and it runs fine. It did what I wanted it to do and I might hook it up again depending on my needs. It's decently made as far as the hardware. It came with the CTRLR controller. D-pad was way too stiff, but the analog and buttons felt pretty nice.

I watched this video earlier and I was always shocked how long Mad Catz lasted and even in their dying days the still managed to produce a load of licenced controllers and fight sticks which were poor quality. Although before the PS3/360 era there were a shocking amount of cheap crappy controllers it just most didn't last long the following generation because the cost of production meant their profit margin would have been non-existent if they tried to keep the prices low. For the most part now the majority of third party controllers are useable unless we are talking about those cheap knockoffs you can get with no branding.

I got a pretty decent Mad Catz SNES controller for just a few dollars (brand new!) in the early 2000s. It was slightly bigger and more ergonomic than Nintendo's own design, and I got years of use out of it.
However, its D-pad didn't have the usual plastic rocker under it to prevent opposing directions from being pressed, and this could cause odd effects in a few games: by pressing all four directions at the same time, Mario could moonwalk at high speed in Super Mario Bros. 3! It also could cause Aero the Acro-Bat to crash when manually panning the camera in opposite directions at the same time.

LMAO I had one and only one madcatz controller for my Dreamcast. It was known by all of us as the “ass pad” and it was bulky, uncomfortable and more or less a punishment when it was handed to you.

From my experience, the blue controller they made for the OG Xbox was pretty good. Served me well for many years until the right trigger got stuck a few years ago and I couldn't get it out.

I really liked their output for GameCube, PS2, and Xbox.