CES 2014: Mad Catz Caters to the Professional Gamer with R.A.T. TE Gaming Mouse

It kind of feels like half of the gaming peripherals that get released nowadays are targeted at eSports, but it’s no surprise – it’s a booming industry. And while it might get a bit tiresome to hear that “eSports” term all the time if you don’t participate or even pay attention to it, it goes without saying that because of it, our gaming peripherals are getting better and better.

Mad Catz’s R.A.T. series of gaming mice have been well-received by most gamers who’ve laid their hands on them, but the company wanted to go one – or three – steps further in order to better cater to those who take gaming a little more seriously than the rest of us. Thus, the “TE” (Tournament Edition) was born.

I admit that I’m not a big fan of the overall look of the R.A.T.^TE, but I sure do love the color-scheme of this particular model. Plus, with a mouse like this, it’s not looks that matters – 99% of what’s important is performance and features – and this mouse has them.

Using a new Phillips doppler sensor (the exact model is not mentioned), the R.A.T.^TE sports DPI support of up to 8200. Further, weight has had a major consideration in the design of this mouse, as has been the programmable button mapping – Mad Catz took a look at the most popular eSports games, and then figured out where the buttons should be placed and how they should act.

Other neat features include “lift-off” configuration and dynamic surface detection – both of which could prove to be important features for the pro-gamer.

Mad Catz hasn’t given us pricing information, but did note the release date should be “soon” – we’d guess about <3 months.