Mad Catz unveil new series of RAT gaming mice to mark their return to PC peripherals
Like chalk and cheese
Mad Catz, the bankrupted-but-recently-resurrected maker of PC peripherals and console controllers for younger brothers and sisters, have announced their return to the world stage of PC hardware with the arrival of not one, but four new gaming mice, and they're all giant, hand-hogging RATs. Sorry, one sec, I just got a whiff of something awful. It smells like... cheesy feet? No, it can't be. Must be the cheese wheel we've got in the fridge. There's a high possibility it's probably gone off. Or maybe our own real-life cats have dragged in some poor rodent through the back door. Back in a mo, better go and take a look.
Nope, whatever it was must have scarpered. Now where were we? Oh yes, Mad Catz. You may remember that Mad Catz lost the last of its nine lives to bankruptcy in March last year, but it turns out that saying might be a load of hogwash, as they were brought back from the dead yet again in January of this year under the newly reanimated ownership of Mad Catz Global.
The RAT mice (nope, still can't get over that), by extension, are the first bits of hardware to be released since Mad Catz Global came into being, and they're heading first to Europe (specifically to Germany, Austria and France before everyone else for some reason), then North America over the coming weeks, before finally spreading to the rest of the world after that.
Starting with the baby of the RAT pack, the RAT 4+ will have a Pixart PMW 3330 optical sensor and Omron switches guaranteed for a life-time of 20 million clicks, as well as multi-zone backlighting for all your LED needs.
Then we've got the RAT 6+, which has a slightly fancier Pixart PMW 3360 sensor, as well as nine programmable buttons, an adjustable palm rest, full RGB lighting and a weight system not unlike the Steelseries Rival 600 and the Logitech G502 Hero. The RAT 6+ has Omron switches as well, but these ones will be guaranteed for 50 million clicks as opposed to 20.
Up next is the RAT 8+ (are you sensing a theme here?), which is pictured up top there. This one has a Pixart PMW 3389 sensor and adds an adjustable thumb rest to the adjustable palm rest. Because you can never have too many adjustment options on a gaming mouse (sorry, RAT), apparently. This one also has removable weights and the same RGB lighting as the 6+, but gives you the added benefit of onboard memory so you can store all those many dozens of mouse profiles you might want to use.
Finally, there's the RAT Pro S3, which has the same Pixart PMW 3300 sensor as the 4+, but throws in 50 million click Omron switches and (yep, you guessed it) an adjustable palm rest. This time, though, the palm rest can tilt +/- 15 degrees as well as move side-to-side, extending up to 12mm from the main frame. And of course, there's that all important RGB lighting for good measure, too.
Here are all of them in their wonderful, cheesy glory (click to enlarge):
Will this be a triumphant return to form for the newly reborn Mad Catz? Can any of them possibly make it into our best gaming mouse rankings? Who knows. Hopefully it won't be too long before we find out.