Thread: Steelseries Shift keyboard now in stock with prophecy

Nice keyboard. I really don't get why this idea of game specific keyboard gets done again and again and again...it simply doesn't work well. Would be much better without the silly per game replaceable keys and some backlighting instead.

Maybe it sells well?

Some people only play a specific game, while many people do play a wide variety of games, there are a few people that a only interested in a single title out there

There are very few titles out there that reach an almost immortal standing and have people play them over and over again. In fact I can only think of 4, CounterStrike Source, WoW, Diablo2, Starcraft (and Starcraft 2) most other games are either played far less than those or don't require a special keyboard anyways since they barely make use of it.

Well thats quite a few people right there that might want to buy a specific keyboard?

Yes perhaps but it's already available in MoH version? They're obviously not sticking to those games and will try almost every new one that comes out.

Anyways the reason why I say they're not popular is because of Ideazon/ZBoard (the company Steelseries seems to have acquired for these keyboards). Have you ever seen anyone recommend a Ideazon/Zboard over other gaming keyboards? I haven't. I guess there could have been dozens of silent sales though.

Another reason why I don't like that they went this route is the Shift actually looks great on it's own, but that price tag is rather hefty for what it offers if you're not planning on swapping out keysets (and how much are those going to cost anyways?) so I can't help but think that if they'd opted for making it a solid keyboard it would be ~R300 cheaper and would make a great ~R500 gaming keyboard, or alternatively could have backlighting (something most gamers are far more concerned about than being able to swap their keys) and compete very well against the likes of Logitech, Microsoft and Razer. As it is for most people this will be an overpriced gimmick keyboard.

Im not looking to pick a fight here I was merely giving my opinion on the keyboard here, the nice thing about the keyboard is as you say, its a nice keyboard on its, own, with full keyboard functionality,
It could also be seen that if something did happen to break on a keyset (as gamers are not at all prone to rage of any sorts) that it would be far cheaper to just replace a keyset than have to buy an entirely new keyboard.

Just my 2c anyways

If something were to break from rage bashing it's more likely the pads underneath would break (and thus the whole keyboard) rather than just the keyset.

And yes it's a nice keyboard on it's own but it's overpriced for something that doesn't have a backlight and/or isn't mechanical. For just a little more I can get a Logitech G110, and a little less than R200 less gets me a Thermaltake eSports Challenger Pro (with gimmicky hand fans) and both of them offer backlighting and that's without even mentioning all the Razers and MS keyboards inbetween or even cheaper. It's priced totally out of it's league.