Last year at CES 2015, Mad Catz continued to display their gaming chops with the unveiling a CES 2015 Innovation & Design 2015 Award Honoree, the Mad Catz L.Y.N.X. 9 Mobile Hybrid Controller. This year at CES 2016, they continued their award honoree run with three new products. Debuting this year are the E.S. PRO 1 Gaming Earbuds and two CES 2016 Innovations Award Honorees in the form of the TRITTON Katana 7.1 Wireless Surround Sound Gaming Headset and the R.A.T.1 Gaming Mouse. Let’s go over the latest that Mad Catz had to show us at CES 2016.
E.S. PRO1™ Gaming Earbuds
Continuing to develop products for the professional gamer and eSports enthusiast, Mad Catz introduced a very unique product for the gamer on the go. In a market full of over-ear gaming headsets targeted at professionals, Mad Catz presented an affordable and highly-compact alternative to the gamer that wants to keep it competitive while keeping it simple. The E.S. PRO 1 Gaming Earbuds brings to the table 13.5mm speakers, soft rubber arms for staying put comfortably in your ears, and most notably an omni-directional removable boom mic.
Want to take your E.S. PRO 1’s for a walk away from the game? Simply remove the boom mic and make use of the headset’s inline mic for use with your mobile device. The E.S. PRO 1 sports a 3.5mm cable and comes with the boom mic, a set of ear bud attachments of varying sizes, and a PC adapter – splitting mic-in and audio out. Ready for practically any gaming scenario, the E.S. PRO 1 Gaming Earbuds is expected to start shipping this month and be stalked for availability here.
TRITTON™ Katana™ HD 7.1 Wireless Headset
The TRITTON™ Katana™ HD 7.1 Wireless Headset has such a straight-forward approach of providing eight channels of uncompressed sound, that it’s surprising that it hasn’t been implemented until now. Well, now that Mad Catz played this card, they now have a TRITTON Katana HD gaming headset that can virtually be used for any gaming platform that uses HDMI. Add in DTS Headphone:X™ technology to power the sound through its 50mm drivers, and you have a wireless surround sound headset for practically any of your gaming needs.
The boom mic here is also omni-directional and removable. It’s backed by Selectable Voice Monitoring which allows the mic to either delete or enhance the gamer’s voice as needed. The headset remains 100% wireless in all chat scenarios save the Xbox One, which forces the use of the included 3.5mm chat cable. Nevertheless, this CES 2016 Innovations Award Honoree covers all of the gaming bases with a different angle to high definition audio than its competitors. With pre-orders shipping in March 2016, you can keep tabs on the TRITTON™ Katana™ HD 7.1 Wireless Headset here.
Specs:
| Wireless Range: 33ft (10m) |
| HDMI with Full Pass-Through |
| Driver Size: 50mm |
| Headset Frequency Response: 20Hz – 20kHz |
| Microphone Frequency Response: 20Hz – 5kHz |
| Battery Type: Rechargeable Lithium-Ion |
| Battery Life: 20 Hours |
R.A.T.™1 Gaming Mouse
The second of Mad Catz’ two CES 2016 Innovations Award Honorees comes in as a new addition to their R.A.T. line of gaming mice. The ambidextrous 6-button R.A.T. 1 Gaming Mouse takes the builds seen in Mad Catz’ R.A.T. PRO series and brings you a simple, inexpensive, and interesting design for a gaming mouse. Consisting of a 3500DPI Pixart PMW3320 optical Sensor Module and just the R.A.T.1 Tripod Chassis, you have what appears to be the bare bones of a gaming mouse. However the R.A.T.1 handles and feels just like a proper gaming mouse.
Need a quick compact mouse for travel? Simply separate the R.A.T.1 Sensor Module from the Tripod Chassis and you have yourself a compact mini mouse that’s ready to go. When the R.A.T.1 is in its complete form, it weighs in at 1.8 ounces and houses an adjustable palm rest on the rear of the Tripod Chassis. Mad Catz went even further with the R.A.T.1 by publishing the necessary CAD files for free to allow 3D printer users to make their own designs and frames for their very own R.A.T.1.
Available now, the R.A.T.1 can be purchased directly from Mad Catz’ online store here for a very modest $29.99.
