Turtle Beach has just announced a new range of gaming headsets specifically tailored to PC gamers. The Elite Atlas, Three, and One headsets have been built through a mind meld between Turtle Beach and esports teams such as: Astralis, OpTic, and the Overwatch League Houston Outlaws.
Turtle Beach are traditionally dead set on catering to console gamers, even controlling 46% revenue share on console this year-to-date. However, it looks like Turtle Beach wants in on the booming PC gaming market, marking a departure from the brand’s console focus. The Atlas range has been tweaked and perfected for the ears of current esports champions, and Turtle Beach hope that’ll be convincing enough to sway PC gamers over to its products.
“As a player and as a team, it’s a privilege to have worked with Turtle Beach in the making of the Elite Atlas and the rest of their new Atlas line,” Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz, member of the Astralis esports team, says. “We tested and provided a lot of feedback and suggestions during the development process in an effort to ensure the Elite Atlas is the best possible headset for PC esports pros, but also for any PC gamers.”
There are some gargantuan competitors in the PC headset market, however. You’ve got the likes of Logitech, HyperX, Roccat, Sennheiser, et al, all vying for market dominance. A heavy-hitter in the console space, such as Turtle Beach, moving into these territorial companies’ market could be great as new impetus for fiery competition – and that’s not often a bad thing for gamers.
But surely there’s a little more to Turtle Beach’s interest in the gaming market than esports alone. The company also found huge success off the back of Epic Games’s record-breaking game, Fortnite. The company reported earlier this year that it had shifted 83% more headsets compared to the previous year by June alone, and its May headset sales had more than doubled since the same period in 2017.
Considering a huge percentage of Fortnite’s 125 million total players – as of June 2018 – play on PC, it’s not all that surprising Turtle Beach wants in on the rabble of PC gamers currently sat on the sidelines.
The Elite Atlas will be come in at $99 (£90), the Atlas Three at $79 (£70), and the Atlas One at $49 (£40). The sound profiles of all three have been tweaked to suit PC gamers, and all feature a brand-agnostic black finish. While the budget cans are certain to pull in gamers regardless, creating a headset that not only competes in the bustling PC market but also manages to make gamers take notice is no easy feat. Let’s see if Turtle Beach can pull it off.