Mad Catz wins SPOnG’s coveted ‘Third-party Peripheral Trophy of Justice’ award this week for doing what any hardware company with commonsense should do: providing gamers with essential peripherals to make their lives better.

Yes, we know. Just like you, we rarely get excited anymore about third-party gaming peripherals, as the industry continues to churn out largely useless and easily-broken tat. Why anybody would want to buy or use a third-party PS2, GameCube or Xbox controller is still way beyond our ken. However, we’ll step down off that soapbox for just one moment.

This is because, also just like you, SPOnG’s been getting increasingly infuriated with the one slightly niggly and annoying aspect of the otherwise mighty Xbox Live Arcade service. That is, the lack of a decent joystick with which to fully enjoy the arcade classics being pumped out of Microsoft’s XBLA mega-brain on a regular basis.

If, like a number of SPOnG staffers, you are just too lazy and could never really be bothered with the overall fangle of making MAME work properly on your PC and then installing a monitor inside an old arcade cabinet (plus of course, not to mention the clear illegality of being one of those naughty people who own thousands of unlicensed MAME ROMs) then you will be worshipping at the altar of XBLA right now, especially seeing as Mad Catz has topped off the home arcade dream with this must-have peripheral (pictured here, from a leaked US sales sheet). All we need now is a small bar in the corner of our lounge and a fag machine in the toilet and life will be complete.

Further details and official pics of this little beauty have yet to be released and SPOnG’s put in a number of calls to Mad Catz in the UK this morning to find out more. When we do, we’ll make sure we update you, seeing as we (hopefully) have just successfully convinced you to buy one.

So far it sounds like it will retail in the States for $49.99 and will come bundled with a number of full Live Arcade games. Mint! As we used to say down the arcade many moons ago.

Slightly off-topic, but one for the forum here. Best ever joystick? Quickshot II anyone? Sega’s Dreamcast Arcade stick?

UPDATE: We just spoke with a PR rep for Mad Catz UK. She was not aware of any plans to release this in the UK in the near future. We will keep pestering them over the coming weeks to try to teach them the basics of running a profitable peripherals company (i.e., if you have good products, make them widely available).