With the Nintendo 3DS launching in Japan next month, I thought only one portable gaming device would be on my mind this year. Wrong! The Switchblade netbook from Razer is – hyperbole aside – quite unlike anything I’ve seen before.
That’s not me declaring it an unqualified success, however. After all, The Switchblade is still at the prototype stage for now, and almost certainly won’t see a release this year. Yet the concept revealed at CES (and in the video below) seems irresistible: a gaming netbook the size of a small paperback with a touchscreen and buttons that are customisable for any game you want to play.
And I don’t just mean static buttons that can be assigned to different tasks through a dry on-screen menu – no, we’re talking buttons that themselves change on the fly, with new icons appearing on the keyboard to suit your needs. We’re talking magic buttons . Possibly.
Anyway, I’m probably making a pig’s ear of explaining this, so hit up the video below to see The Switchblade in its full glory. It’s worth watching solely for Razer’s CEO, Min-Liang Tan, the MOST INTENSE GAMES COMPANY CEO EVER :
[Via MTV Multiplayer]
