Bjoern:
I remember a big LAN party in germany that Logitech sponsored. They had a booth there and promised people a new Logitech mouse when they smash their Razer mouse. You know what ? They didn't smash a single one.

Razerguy:
Our biggest challenge as a company is to get people in touch with our products and use it. It´s not the easiest thing in the world because LG owns all the real estate. At the retailer you´ll see LG, LG, LG. A small part for Razer and then MS, MS, MS. In a perfect world we would go from door to door and ask people to test our mouse. Obviously that´s not very practical so we´re concentrating on sponsoring LAN events. At most of them we´re setting up a booth so that people can try our mouse. That´s our promotion.

Bjoern:
Gamers don´t buy their mouse ´cos of the promotion or the name. They buy it because of good performance. I was in the Media Market (German electronic store – Ed.) after the Diamondback was released to take some pictures for Robert and on the left side of the shelf there was the MX510, on the right side MX510 and in the middle, where the DB was supposed to be ,a gap. Completely sold out!

Razerguy:
We also see things like the way people obviously shop. For example, for a Logitech product they read 4-5 boxes, they read the specs, test the mouse, they ask for help and it takes 15 minutes to make the decision. When somebody is shopping for a Razer mouse it takes 30 seconds because they already decided; they already did their homework. They read the reviews, they asked their friends, searched the forums like Razer Blueprints and already decided that this is what they want to have. This is the way they shop. If Razer has any challenge it is to get people in touch with our products.

Bjoern:
You know, people sometimes ask for my advice. I usually suggest then that they should buy a Razer, try it, and if they don´t like it they can give it back. Until now, not a single person returned their mouse.

Razerguy:
If they give it enough time they will like it. Some people don´t load the drivers, rush too fast...

Blueprints:
Yes, you really need some time to adapt. When I got my first Boomslang (it´s now over 4 years) I needed about two to three weeks to adapt to the much higher sensitivity. You have to train yourself to get used to it.

  Razerguy:
We did some research, and one guy got a mouse for 2 weeks and had to get back to his old mouse. And he actually believed that our mouse put some kind of a bug into his system and slowed his old mouse down. He said “My old mouse was never that bad before. What did you do to my system?” That´s the point of differentiation. Look, you buy a Ford and it will get you from point A to point B. It does the job. And you can buy a $9.99 mouse and it will move your cursor on the screen. But if you bought a Ferrari or a Porsche it´s a whole different experience. They all do the same thing, but there is certainly a very different feeling using it. And it´s no different from a mouse, golf club or tennis racket. When you play with something that really has quality you sense it. And when you have to go back to the Ford, too bad!

We already talked about the external design. We certainly did reposition the side buttons. We´re offering the opportunity on an aftermarket basis to add weight. We did improve the feel, at least from my point of view. We kept the ambidextrous design. We may not always be able to do that, but we felt that this is still a great solution.

Blueprints:
Do you know how many of the the pro gamers are left handed?

Bjoern:
Hmm, I think not more than 5%.

Razerguy:
Well, two out of every five people born are left-handed. I´m left-handed too. But when I started playing in the late ´80s and ´90s I was forced to use my right hand. So I´ve always used my right hand for gaming, but only because I had no other choice, because all the mice in those days were for right-handed people. If I had a choice I wouldn't have changed.

Blueprints:
So most users were forced to use the right hand for gaming.

Razerguy:
Yeah, thats part of the thing I was talking about. When you have competition you have alternatives. You can´t continue to dictate to people what they should use, and you have to ask people what they're going to want. Anyway, back to the design. We think the mouse is very cool-looking. It has three different light sources and an LED behind the scroll wheel. It has a continuous glow pipe that goes around it and then we have a pulsating light behind the snake in the middle which gives you some information back:It tells you when you´re changing profiles or updating firmware.

Blueprints:
Can you manipulate the pulse rate of the this LED through the drivers?

Razerguy:
No, not yet. That might be a future firmware update.

Blueprints:
Will there be other colours available?

Razerguy:
Well, it comes in three different colours; blue, green and red. I think blue is still the best, green is second, because it's a Razer green, although we call it Chaos green. I´ve got tired of the clear cases so we did a deep black case with high quality rubberised buttons covered with a silicon finish on top to keep your fingers from sweating. That´s something, again; Logitech would never do that. To have a rubberised coating and then put a silicon spray on it? Who else would do that unless you listen to what gamers said. A guy sent us a mail saying "My hand respires, what can you do about that? I play for an hour and I started sweating". So the silicon spray dries the sweat almost immediately. We did the same thing on our mousepad. The Exactmat has a similar coating, which helps dry the sweat. The point is that we do listen, and the things we do are not just cosmetic, they´re somewhat functional.

Blueprints:
Second question in our forum after "Where can I buy it?" is always "When can I buy it?"

Razerguy:
Well, I would say in Europe you will see it online starting from the 1st of October and it will be in stores probably two weeks after that. For the US, same thing two weeks earlier. For Asia, I haven´t a clue.

Blueprints:
And when do you want to offer the Pro Tools?

Razerguy:
Hopefully just after that. We´re working on the packaging right now. So I would say from 1st of October you will see it online on Razerzone and Europe.

Blueprints:
Can you tell me something about the upcoming products, especially the new keyboard?

Razerguy:
I can´t tell you a whole lot about the technology. A couple of years ago when we started working together I could tell you everything because we were pretty much below the Radar. The competition really wasn´t watching us. They didn´t care about us. And now they look at us probably more than we look at them. Everything I say comes back to me so I have to be a lot more rigid about giving out information. That said, the keyboard...

Blueprints:
...will still have keys ?

Razerguy:
...What? Yes, it still has keys. Don´t expect the keyboard to be drastically different in terms of looks. It will look cool, but we´re not designing a natural keyboard. We´re not trying to change the actual configuration of the keyboard or the ergonomics. We are certainly making a keyboard that´s right for gaming. The keys for example: It´s not completely shortstroke and not longstroke. The keys are optimized ergonomically as far as grams of resistance. You can rest with your fingers on the keys without actually triggering it. We made quite a study of the human factors. The keys will be zero acoustic, no noise, but with a real firm feel. It will actually increase your productivity. You still want good resistance but fast triggering. The big news on the keyboard is not that we made enhanced keys, but this keyboard is the smartest keyboard ever made. It gives you tremendous functionality and programmability, macros, scripts, store the profiles on the keyboard, much like the copperhead. First make a high quality keyboard and then add mobility and flexibility. And then open up the driver source to give gamers, engineers and designers the possibilty to add their ideas. It has two enormously large OLED (ed. organic LED) screens. Use your imagination for what you can do with them in terms of programmability.

Blueprints:
Are we gonna see the product this year?

Razerguy:
Yes. Perhaps in late October.