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Arcade Sticks

thankyou_goodbye.jpg

I saw that the news is out there. I wanted to thank everyone I’ve worked with at Mad Catz over the last 8 years.

As you probably have heard. Mad Catz has been restructuring and the company work force has been affected by layoffs. I was laid off last week as a result of this. I have nothing but deep love and admiration for Mad Catz. MCZ is a company that believed in me and a community that I love. Even though everyone knew I was planning on leaving, they decided to take care of me and let me go, which I am very grateful for. Thank you Mad Catz.

We grew that brand to be something amazing. I’ll always cherish the memories, knowledge, friendships and connections we’ve shared. I wish Mad Catz nothing but the best in the future.

I’ll still be around gaming. I’ll still be involved with the fighting game community. What’s next? You’ll find out soon. Thanks everyone for the love and support over the past few years.

Much LOVE and RESPECT,

Mark ‘MarkMan’ Julio

TE_MADCATZThis cool guy just celebrated it’s 6th birthday (Street Fighter IV & this product launched in Feb. of 2009). It helped create a legacy and new age within the fighting game community for Mad Catz​. This past weekend at Cannes Winter Clash, the winner of the Ultra Street Fighter​ IV tournament (Poongko, S. Korea) used the original SF4 Tournament Edition FightStick to claim victory. It’s been a wild ride. You ain’t seen nothing yet.

To celebrate the 6th anniversary of the original Mad Catz Tournament Edition FightStick, Mad Catz will be giving away a special prize package this week! One lucky winner will win this legacy pack including the two below FightSticks!

– Street Fighter IV Arcade FightStick Tournament Edition for Xbox 360
– Ultra Street Fighter IV Arcade FightStick TE2 for Xbox 360

Stay tuned to twitter.com/MadCatz for more updates!

2014_Year_In_Review

With 2014 coming to an end, I already find myself reminiscing over the last year. The emotion highs and lows. Success and failure. What could have been and what’s to come. So much to think about. I’m going to think hard over the next few days as I’m actually on vacation (yay) and want to come up with some relevant data to present to the peeps in the street. Here’s what I’m thinking so far for my year in review!

  • Favorite Event
  • Travel Destination of the Year
  • Best Sneaker Pick-Up
  • Best Gaming Pick-Up
  • 2014 Game of the Year
  • 2014 Manga of the Year
  • 2014 Anime of the Year
  • 2014 Movie of the Year
  • New Experience of the Year
  • Girl of the Year
  • Homie of the Year
  • Nostalgia Trip of the Year

I will thoroughly report on the above and have something to you sometime after New Year’s. Until then. Thank you so much for 2014. ❤

TE2I work with arcade sticks. Something I really like. One of the projects I worked on awhile ago was the design of the award winning Mad Catz Arcade FightStick Tournament Edition 2, the successor of the original Tournament Edition FightStick that I worked on back in 2008. The TE2 was first introduced with Killer Instinct on Xbox One but now we (at Mad Catz) are releasing it for other consoles & tying it into other games. Click below for a mini-gallery of all our TE2 FightSticks that are just about to release!

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UPDATE: The Persona 4: The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold Arcade FightStick TE2 will be released in North America as well! Make sure you check out all the info here.

The sequel to Persona 4 Arena is finally hitting consoles in Japan! Later this week with Persona 4: The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold will make it’s debut alongside Mad Catz’s latest arcade stick, in TE2 form! Check out this preview video of the Persona 4 – The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold Arcade FightStick TE2 for PlayStation 3 & PlayStation 4! The stick is currently slated for a Japan release only however Mad Catz is keen to release it in other regions very soon as well.

FIGHTSTICKSHi I’m MarkMan. Today I’m posting as a representative of Mad Catz. I’m aware of stick latency & PCB differences. This should be apparent and known that not every PCB that goes into a USB controller/product is the same nor is it made from the same factory/spec. There will be a variance depending on what solution is used. It’s up to the manufacturer to determine whether or not it is acceptable for consumer use. I’ve seen test results on Teyah.net (great research btw) and videos and postings in the past. Yes, some PCBs react slower (milliseconds) vs others. Is it detrimental to gameplay? At the tested ratings, no. If it was, we would make changes to improve the product, as we’ve done throughout the life cycle of said products. Additionally, we wouldn’t see the results (from tournaments) that we’ve seen over the past 5 years if it was a game changer. To some people, especially those not closely involved in the tech talk community, this might sound like an excuse or it may sound like us dismissing the data… But quite the contrary. We could just ignore it and keep selling and making products. We don’t work that way. We work for the community as they are the reason why we continue to do cool things and provide a product and service we can be proud of. Let’s see how many MCZ sticks win the gold during EVO weekend again. Be safe ya’ll! 🙂

photoMadonna anyone? Okay never mind, I think I’m too old. Anyways like a prayer… More work-related stuff coming that was announced by our partners at ATLUS recently! The Persona 4 – The Ultimax  Ultra Suplex Hold Arcade FightStick TE2 by Mad Catz is on it’s way to Japan (yes, Japan only for now)! This marks our (Mad Catz) first time working with ATLUS to collaborate on an official arcade stick release. I couldn’t be more excited! I’ve been a fan of the Persona series since the original Revelations: Persona game on the original PlayStation. With how much the game has grown/changed (Persona 3 to Persona 4, notably) from an RPG to now a full fledged fighting game series, I am so happy that the series and it’s fanbase has really taken off to bigger and better things! I love Persona and fighting games, how could this go wrong? It didn’t. 🙂 Check the announcement blog post from the official Persona site below!

mark-julio-message-memeI’ve been a bit busy with work and travels so I haven’t had a chance to update my personal site as much as I would have liked to… However! I can’t pass on the opportunity to talk about a recent Facebook conversation turned internet meme that I just happened to be involved in. It was early morning on June 26th, someone on Facebook decided to message me (in a harassing sort of way) to get my attention. When I finally replied and asked them to stop, they took it to offense. Even though I had the best intentions in helping them, their last reply was so rude, funny and awesome at the same time… I just had to share it with the world. It quickly turned into something more. I was approached by a good man and company to see if we can turn something negative into a positive, and we’re doing just that. For more information on ‘Your behave is just f#ck’ shirt to benefit the fighting game community, click below!

markjulio01When I was in Singapore I sat down with a brilliant friend and journalist, Jonathan Toyad (formerly with GameSpot Asia) to discuss just how things happened the way they did with myself and Mad Catz… It was a thrilling moment of recollection and emotionally challenging to realize huge change that happened because of “luck.” Check out all the fun stuff and my version of the story below!