Wearing a headset to trash-talk to your friends during co-op play on Kinect games may not be the hippest thing in the world, but there are still plenty of multiplayer games that can be helped out with premium sound and clear voice communications&mdsah;and Mad Catz wants to be there to help. The company is launching three new gaming headsets that should be available for the upcoming end-of-year holiday season, co-branded under both the Tritton and Xbox 360 names.
“Gaming audio is an important part of our business and will be a key growth driver for our fiscal 2012,” said Mad Catz CEO and president Darren Richardson, in a statement. “Furthermore, we believe that our audio products could account for 40 to 50 percent of our sales in the next 12–18 months.”
First up, the Tritton Warhead 7.1 Dolby Wireless Surround Headset for Xbox 360 (try saying that five times fast) will sport 5.8 GHz wireless technology to connect to the Xbox 360 console, and can expand a 5.1 surround-sound game into a 7.1 surround sound experience. The headset features 50mm neodymium drivers, two hot-swappable rechargeable battery packs so you don’t have to leave the action to keep your audio going, along with built-in EQ, independent voice and game volume controls, and padding on the earcups and headband designed for hours (and hours…and hours) of continuous play. The Warheads also sport selective voice monitoring, so players can enable or disable hearing their own voice.
The Tritton Devastator Wireless Stereo Headset for Xbox 360 will over a similar feature set, but step back to stereo audio rather than surround sound, and will run on AA batteries so users don’t have have to fuss with custom batteries. (Be sure to buy some AA rechargeables!) Finally, the Tritton Detonator Stereo Headset for Xbox 360 offers a wired stereo headset system—which means, as an added bonus, they can be used with anything sporting a 3.5mm audio jack.
Mad Catz hasn’t announced pricing for the new headphones, but says they should be available worldwide for the 2011 holiday season.
