Whether it’s rodents, flat wedges of plastic or rectangles with keys on them, Razer’s new team is ready for action.
In a proud press release emailed to us this morning, Razer have announced that they've created a new design team across the northern pond in Taiwan.
As detailed in the release: "The Taiwan office is the third design centre for Razer, following design centres in San Francisco and Singapore. Razer also previously established a technology research centre in Austin, Texas earlier this year."
Included in the currently 20-strong Taiwan design team are software designers alongside product designers, meaning the team could be responsible for the next Razer success story...or something to be tucked under the bed and never spoken of again.
Their design centre in San Francisco was responsible for the Razer 'Switchblade' concept – a 7-inch portable netbook-type device that features OLED displays in each key on the keyboard, allowing on-the-fly changes to controls and integration within games (MMOs most notably would benefit from this).
Razer are also notable for their 'Mouse Bungee', a device intended for competitive FPS players that keeps their mouse cord from getting tangled or out of place; released in 1996, it's getting a 2011 makeover by another of Razer's teams.
Plans are in place to expand the team to over 100 designers, and Razer's ambitions to become a top player in the mobile computing and gaming space are made all the clearer by this section of the release:
"With the acquisition of the Razer Taiwan team, Razer now has one of the world's largest internal R&D and design teams that specialises in complete systems and ultra-mobile computing design."
Whether the Switchblade will be worked on by this team, or something new entirely, our suggestion is to watch this space – there may just be something cool over the horizon.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012