Mad Catz CEO and chairman resign day before earnings report

Mad Catz, the major peripheral manufacturer and co-publisher of last year's Rock Band 4, has announced widespread executive board changes just prior to issuing its latest financial earnings report.

The company confirmed in a press release that Darren Richardson, longtime president and CEO, has resigned, along with chairman Thomas Brown. Whitney Peterson, the senior vice president of business affairs, has also stepped down.

Richardson held his position since 2004. He's been replaced by Karen McGinnis, who previously served as chief financial officer. Mad Catz is still set to announce its third quarter financial results tomorrow afternoon.

Last summer, Mad Catz notified investors that it needed Rock Band 4 to be a big success to help stabilize the company's finances. The notification came in a securities filing that indicated Mad Catz was having trouble meeting its debt obligations.

Mad Catz, in comments to the press at the time, downplayed the severity of the situation, saying the wording of the notice was required by securities law and unchangeable. But the company did have to secure additional financing to meet its debts and be ready to ship Rock Band 4.

For its last fiscal quarter, Mad Catz touted net sales of $38.9 million, boosted by the Oct. 6 launch of Rock Band 4 and its various controller bundles The company still posted a net loss for the quarter that was 75 percent greater than the same period in 2014, and a six-month loss 157 percent higher than the same period the year before.

Harmonix launched Rock Band 4 back in October as the franchise's first new game in almost 5 years. While we generally liked the game, which you can see in our overview below, we took issue with the inconsistent quality of the Mad Catz-designed peripherals in our review.