razer posts

It's been a long wait but the PC game perhiperal maker Razer has finally announced that its long-in-development Razer Hydra PC game motion controllers will finally be released this June. The product will come with the full version of the just released puzzle shooter Portal 2 that will include six exclusive levels that can be played only with the Razer Hydra controller.

In addition to the Portal 2 support, Razer says the Hydra will be able to support playing over 125 PC games out of the box. A full list of supported games can be found here. Two of the controllers are included in the $139.99 bundle along with the wired base and Portal 2. Each controller wil have four buttons and true six degrees of freedom for controlling PC games. Pre-orders for the Hydra begin in May.

Razer announced its Switchblade mobile gaming PC concept design a few months ago at CES to huge acclaim. Now the company has announced a deal with China-based Tencent to have the Switchblade be optimized to run the games from the publisher, including Tencent's recently acquired game League of Legends.

Just a reminder: The Switchblade design has a 7-inch screen, an Intel Atom processor and a keyboard that can adjust to work specifically with games designed to work with the Switchblade. Razer has already said the design is just a concept and that it will be made by other companies. There's no word on when the first products with the Switchblade design will be released.

[Via email press release]

Now this is a product that we (kind of) wish was real. The folks at Razer have announced that its latest PC gaming perhipheral will really speed up how you play many games. It's called the Razer Talon and it's a hand controller with some, well, connections to your nerve endings.

The end result is that wearing this exo-skeleton controller will increase your player APM (actions per minute) rate to 3,000. While that sounds good, in real life we are also sure that this thing can't be good for your health overall. But we bet that some people might sacrifice that to compete in tournaments with this thing if it were a real product.

Austin, Texas is already a hot bed of game development with a number of both large and small studios making titles of all types. Now the gaming PC peripheral maker Razer has just announced plans to open up an office in Austin.

Officially called the Razer Austin Technical Research Center, the office will join Razer's offices in Singapore and San Francisco. The Austin office "will include a technology lab where engineers and developers will create new concept vehicles as well as technology demos". Razer recently shocked the PC gaming community with its concept design for the small 7-inch netbook-style gaming PC the Razer Switchback. However Razer's CEO Min-Liang Tan hints that the new Austin office will be brainstorming other wild ideas for products, saying, "If you were blown away by the Razer Switchblade and its dynamic interface, well then you haven't seen anything yet."

Dragon Age 2 is due out next week and soon fans of BioWare's fantasy RPG sequel will be able to play the PC version of the game with official Dragon Age 2 PC gaming accessories. Razer announced today that it would have a ton of official merchandise branded with Dragon Age 2 artwork.

That includes the Dragon Age 2 version of the Razer DeathAdder gaming PC mouse for $69.99 (shown above, a DA2 Razer BlackWidow Ultimate gaming PC keyboard for $139.99, a version of the Onza Tournament Edition gamepad controller for $59.99, a Goliathus Speed Edition Gaming Mouse Mat for $24.99 and a The Dragon Age II Razer Messenger Bag for $89.99. In addition each product (except for the Messenger Bag) comes with an exclusive code for a Dragon Age 2 in-game item, "The Ring of Whispers". All of the products should be in stores or via Razer's web site by April.

Back in December 2010, the gaming PC mouse maker Razer gave a special holiday gift to a select few friends and partners: A black Signature Edition of the classic Razer DeathAdder mouse. The Signature Edition was limited to just 1,337 copies (1337 = leet). Now Razer has decided to release a commercial version of the mouse for everyone to get their hands on.

The regular edition of the black Razer DeathAdder has a sleek pitch-black finish but still has the same ergonomic design, five buttons and the infrared sensor with up to 3500 dpi settings. The mouse is available now to order for $59.99.

In related news Razer has announced that Ed Fries to its board of advisers. Fries is the former head of Microsoft Game Studios and is also a co-founder of Airtight Games.

Lots of PC gamers play their games on laptops nowadays but notebooks are not known for their speaker systems. Now Razer has just announced a new portable PC gaming speaking system called the Razer Ferox that promises to solve that issue.

The Ferox's design allows for the sound generated by the speakers to be heard in a full 360 degree directional cone rather than the normal forward facing speakers. It also has a Expanded Bass Resonance Chamber directly under the speaker driver for a deep bass sound. The Ferox comes with a rechargeable battery for up to 12 hours of use. The speakers are now on sale at Razer's web site for $59.99.

The PC gaming perhiperial maker Razer first announced its plans to enter the crowded third party console controller market with the Razer Onza gamepad for the Xbox 360. It's taken a while but this week at CES 2011 the company announced that it will start taking pre-orders for the Razer Onza on January 17,

One of the nice things about this gamepad is that it can also work as a PC controller as well without the need for extra drivers. The standard $39.99 version contains two more buttons that sit above the normal trigger buttons that can be remapped for any action you want to take. It also has a redesigned D-pad and backlit action buttons. The Tournament Edition costs $49.99 and in addition to the above features also allows gamers to change the resistance levels on both of its analog sticks.

Earlier this week at Intel's CES 2011 press conference a demo of the long awaited PC game motion controller from Razer was shown on stage playing Valve's upcoming puzzle-shooter Portal 2. The motion controller, which made its debut at the 2010 CES show, now has an actual name, the Razer Hydra, according to a new article from our sister site Joystiq.

Joystiq got a hands-off demo of the Hydra in action and seemed to be impressed with the Hydra which instead of a camera uses a "small base station that creates an electromagnetic field with a radius of about six feet" to "see" the two wired controllers. Joystiq also reports that the controller, which is being co-developed by Sixense, will actually have a special bundled version of Portal 2 that will have "new maps and puzzle mechanics built exclusively for Hydra." An example of the new puzzle design: being able to stretch cubes in the game.

Unfortunately that also means the Razer Hydra controller is still a long way off from being released with Joystiq saying that it's now scheduled to come out in early 2012. However the Sixense technology already supports a ton of previously released PC games. You can check out a video showing the controller being used on a boatload of PC games after the jump:

Two words:, "Holy" and "Crap", come to mind with this news story. Razer, the maker of gaming PC mice and other devices has just announced at CES 2011 an all new concept for a gaming PC device. Its calling it the Switchblade and its a mobile device designed for PC gaming but with a small form factor and 7-inch screen running on an Intel Atom processor.

Razer says that this concept design will replace the traditional mouse and keyboard control scheme with an "ultra-sensitive multi-touch screen, dynamic tactile keyboard, and an intelligent user interface" that, based on a game's content and system requirements, will adjust accordingly.

The product's official web page has more info on the Switchblade, including the fact that it will support the Windows 7 OS, have support for both 3G and WiFi wireless gaming and more. Razer says they have been working on this concept for the past two years in secret. Unfortunately this is just a concept design at this point but Razer states it " ... will be working with selected partners to design and launch products based off the Razer Switchblade concept design." You can check out a video showing the Switchblade in action, including how the keyboard changes with each game, after the jump.

Update: Our sister site Engadget got some hands-on time with the Razer Switchblade prototype and while there are still a lot of unanswered questions about the device (what kind of storage, battery life and of course the price) they seemed impressed, saying, " ... this is what UMPCs and MIDs should've been. Portable devices that are actually powerful enough to get work done, and to engage in games during your downtime." They are guessing that mass production of such a device could happen sometime in 2012.