When you get into gaming, you likely won't just shop for the essential hardware, like graphics cards and mice with extra buttons. Before you know it, you'll be Googling gaming chairs and headsets and light-up keyboards. CES 2024 kicked things up a notch, debuting a wide variety of innovative gaming tech—some of which is legitimately cool, and some of which is a little... quirky.
Razer's coolest CES product concept is a haptic feedback cushion for your gaming chair. Called Project Esther, this rumbly cushion for your rear end has 16 haptic sensors that line up nicely against your back, butt, and thighs. When you play games, you'll get vibrating feedback in different regions based on what's happening in-game. On the one hand, this makes sense: Haptic feedback via handheld controllers can add a lot to the experience of a game—but having that feedback directed to your posterior is a bit of a strange twist.
If you're a collector with Sega Mega Drive and Genesis cartridges lying around, you could play those games on Hyperkin's new handheld, called the Mega 95. It has a 5-inch display that can easily toggle between 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios. There's no pricing or availability information at the moment.
The release of the Steam Deck has set off a wave of handheld gaming consoles for PC gaming. We've already seen the Asus ROG Ally, and now there's the MSI Claw, which is the first gaming handheld to ship with the Intel Core Ultra chip. Like the ROG Ally, the MSI Claw also runs Windows 11. The Claw has a couple of macro keys, which will allow you to run a few pre-programmed actions at the press of a button. The console is priced between $699 and $799, and it'll ship in the first half of 2024, according to MSI.
When you think gaming PCs, you're probably visualizing a towering hulk of a cabinet with a transparent glass panel and enough RGB lighting to light up a room. ASUS wants you to revisit that vision with the ROG NUC, which is teeny-tiny. The machine weighs just 1.76lbs (800g) and when propped up vertically, it's just 1.6 inches wide and 5.6 inches tall.
It doesn't sacrifice on power either, as you get to choose between Intel Core Ultra 7 or Core Ultra 9 processors, up to Nvidia's RTX 4070 GPUs, and 64GB of RAM. The machine has four slots for PCIe SSD storage, too. There's no pricing or availability information at the moment, but it'll be interesting to see what the final build of this machine ships with. NUCs are famous for not shipping with storage, and airflow is also a concern for tiny cases, but they mostly do the job. I've used a NUC exclusively to play Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition and it hasn't disappointed so far.
Hyte Keeb TKL is a keyboard with RGB lighting and dedicated media keys. It looks cool and has gasket-mounted keys, which should feel nicer to press than your average clackety keyboard. It has a couple of interesting magnetic rollers above the media keys, which you can program and use while gaming—to switch out inventory items, cycle through weapons, etc. The Keeb TKL is priced at $179.99 and ships starting Feb. 15, 2024.
The Xbox's original "Duke" controller has become the stuff of legend. It was massive and unergonomic, but it still has its fan following. Eventually, the Duke was replaced by the Xbox Controller S, and Hyperkin has now recreated that controller for your modern gaming devices. This new controller is called the Hyperkin DuchesS. This product is in development right now, so the final version could change significantly, but we do know that it'll work with Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows 10 or 11 gaming PCs.
The WowCube looks and functions like a Rubik's Cube, but it has four screens on each side. You can twist these screens, tilt the device, and tap the screens to play games. With access to an app store to download games and on-screen widgets, it has the potential to be a fun little gadget. In practice, though, it's not for everyone. Lifehacker's Senior Technology Editor Jake Peterson tried out the WowCube at CES and he wasn't impressed. The device is priced at $699 and ships in Q1 2024.
