Gamescom 2012 – Mad Catz and Razer unveil keyboards for hardcore gamers
Day two of Gamescom is well underway, and while everyone is getting stuck into the best upcoming titles, Razer and Mad Catz are showing off the kit you'll be using to play them. Warning: these aren't for the casual gamer.
Mad Catz S.T.R.I.K.E. 7
The Mad Catz S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 is about as fully customisable as a keyboard could be – you can dismantle its five separate sections – including a touchscreen pad – and put them back together whichever way you fancy.
The S.T.R.I.K.E. 7's touchscreen can also detect gesture controls for the the full Starship Enterprise experience, while the keyboard even comes with some comfy wrist wrests for those long gaming sessions
Of course, all of this has to come at a price, and at an eye-watering £250, it's certainly not coming in cheap. It is, however, available right now.
Razer Deathstalker Ultimate
The Razer Deathstalker Ultimate is a little more streamlined than the Mad Catz – but just as packed out with features. For one, its touchscreen is actually integrated onboard, and can be used to control your web browser, Facebook and other widgets. Not to mention any number of in-game apps we'll surely be seeing.
The Deathstalker Ultimate also packs ten fully-customisable LCD keys – you can even change the tiny display on each key. Expect to see game designers creating their own features and designs for the keys that will appear during gameplay.
Even for the non-gamer, the DeathStalker Ultimate is a cool piece of kit, and we can't wait to see what users and developers will do with it. It'll be launching in September for $250 (£160)
You may also like
Stuff Office Cat's Diary – 16/08/12
BlackBerry’s BB10 handsets to feature HD screens
Android Jelly Bean spotted on Samsung Galaxy S3
Comments
Shane1994
32 weeks ago
Nice products but hardly what can be called Hardcore instead I'd just call them shiny.
Having a keyboard with a screen myself myself yeah sure its a great keyboard but honestly the screen thing? never used it in games let alone found it helpful and useful in improving gameplay, I'd rather see mechanical keys put on expensive keyboards as I'm sure most "hardcore" gamers would favor long lasting and more accurate keys over a screen that tells you the time, how many emails you have and what your characters health is.
Also this makes four major keyboard brands to do this now and (if I recall correctly) 6 keyboards with screens, the current problem with the existing keyboards is partly the fact very few games are compatable, will more keyboards help that situation? or will they just force game devs to pick a faveroute and develop apps only for that.