Roccat rocks up in US

ROCCAT-Isku-talk

German gaming peripherals manufacturer Roccat is to launch its wares 'Stateside this week, bringing its keyboards, mice and headsets to a US audience. It's currently showing off what it has at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, and says it'll begin shipping via Amazon in February.

What then, American readers, can you expect? A fair few pieces of Roccat kit have passed through PC Gamer's seaside lab in the UK over the last couple of years, and generally scored well.

The company first came to our attention with its Smart Desktop Management System (SDMS), which is basically a way of saying peripherals should be as small as possible and includes things like the Apuri mouse bungee, which holds cables up out of the way.

While SDMS was more than a bit gimmicky, fortunately the company now concentrates more on marketing new products as standalone pieces rather than re-imagining the desktop paradigm using Battlestar-style wedged corners. The kit we've seen has been solidly built if a little hard to get excited about. The mice are comfortable, good performers, but expensive. I do like the tiny £45 Arvo keyboard, although again it's up against some strong competition at the price.

Getting into the US is a good thing for the company. What I'd really like to see is for them to release a mechanical keyboard as a sign that they're a mature gaming brand.

The first products into the US will apparently be the Kone[+] 6000dpi mouse ($79.99), the Isku keyboard ($89.99) and the Kave headset ($119.99)