VR boosting sales of flight sticks, says Mad Catz

The fantasy of going to space in virtual reality isn't complete without some actual flight sticks on your desk.

Mad Catz, owner of HOTAS and flight sticks manufacturer Saitek, firmly believes the recent rise in sales and interest in their products is due to the rise of virtual reality.

"Last year, through most of last year? The HOTAS [Hands-on Throttle and Stick] system was the best selling product of the company," Global PR director for Mad Catz Alex Verrey told Polygon. "That's because of Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen and the whole VR thing. We literally couldn't make them fast enough."

Verry added that he "absolutely believes" the surge is due to VR, and referred to the X-52 - one of their most popular sticks, which is also represented in-game in Elite: Dangerous.

"They've [Frontier] coded it into the game. You can see the controls. We have an exclusive range of Star Citizen hardware hitting later this year, and that's looking super cool. It's taking our HOTAS products and adapting them specifically for Star Citizen."

Verry said they're not just selling them to consumers either, but to developers as well, revealing that HTC is using their products to demo the Vive headset at CES.