New Keyboard For Gamers From Microsoft

A new keyboard has been launched by Microsoft to cater to the special needs of the gaming community. The new device is called “SideWinder X4 Keyboard”, and will be available from March 2010 in retail stores, and on Amazon.com beginning February 2010. The price tag of the keyboard is USD 59.95.

The main feature of the new keyboard is that it recognizes the most complex key combinations and thus saves the gamer the tedium of having to press multiple keys for one single game move to keep the game going. This is called “Anti-Ghosting” technology in gaming parlance. Gamers can now press up to 26 keys at once, concurrently, and each key press will be correctly detected by the underlying hardware.

Further, the keyboard has an inbuilt facility to perform macro recording where multiple moves can be stringed together into one key, so that pressing just that one key is all that is required to let loose that entire chain of commands into the game. There are facilities to switch between and across modes and profiles, and the gamer can customize the keyboard the way they want. Adjustable backlighting lets gamers select the appropriate lighting level.

Read more about the latest technical gizmo from Microsoft, aimed at the gaming community, here.