SteelSeries Unveils Sentry Eye Tracker, iOS Game Controller & 'Sims 4' Peripherals

At E3, many years ago, SteelSeries caught our attention among the growing number of gaming hardware makers. Instead of massive, noisy, lavish booth setups, they instead made each and every meeting personal. The "demos" involved finding a quiet corner, sitting on the floor, and someone from SteelSeries opening their bag to let us get hands on with their hardware as they explain what's new and different, and how professional player feedback is used to design their units.

That allowed for the creation and perfecting of super lightweight, easily clickable high-performance mice for Counter-Strike players, multi-button, wireless/wired combo mice for MMO players, and ultra-comfort headsets, among a wide range of other peripherals - many of which were licensed for some of the biggest games out there (World of Warcraft, etc). At E3 2014, SteelSeries had some different types of products to announce alongside another licensed line of items for The Sims 4.

One of the big games we knew Electronic Arts was going to present during their E3 2014 press conference was The Sims 4 and SteelSeries has partnered with the publisher to release a licensed Sims 4 Gaming Headset, Mouse and QCK Mousepad, all coming this fall. Here are the descriptions and images - note the awesome green diamond light design on the mouse and on the side of the headsets.

The Sims 4

The Sims 4 Gaming Headset (MSRP $39.99/â‚¬39.99)

The all white headset features an illuminated Plumbob on each ear cup that changes to reflect the current emotional state of your Sim. Its slim profile on-ear design connects to your PC via USB. Its audio quality allows users to clearly hear their Sims as well as the environment around them from other Sims in the background to music and ambient noise.

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The Sims 4 Gaming Mouse & QCK Mousepad (MSRP $29.99 / â‚¬29.99 & $14.99 / â‚¬14.99)

Featuring a streamlined three-button ergonomic design, the white glossy mouse also has an illuminated Plumbob that changes to reflect the current emotional state of your Sim. To complete the ultimate set-up, the new game-inspired The Sims 4 QcK mousepad has a unique micro-fiber surface that ensures a smooth, consistent glide.

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Read more about The Sims 4 peripherals here.

The Sentry

The most innovative of SteelSeries' new offerings is their "Sentry" eye-tracking device that they built with the help of Tobii Technology and it's the first of its kinda built for gaming. The device helps improve and track player performance based on where they (literally) spend their focus during gameplay (think of it as benchmarking eye movement). You can analyze and compare to pro gamers SteelSeries is working with to better track Fixations per Minute (FPM) to see how efficiently you're processing info (some examples in DOTA 2 below).

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The forward-thinking aspect of eye-tracking is of course the enhanced control implications it could have down the road where eye/head movement can serve as another input, similar to how moving one's head while using VR headsets by Oculus or Sony moves the player's perspective in the application. SteelSeries is working on applications for the future but the device will be available this fall.

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The Stratus XL

For over a year SteelSeries has been developing a controller for controller-enabled iOS games for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch and what they've come up with is the Stratus XL, a full-sized game controller that connects to iOS devices via bluetooth. It runs on AA batteries for an estimated 40 hours and features the standard D-pad, 4 face buttons, 4 shoulder buttons and dual analog sticks. Just like Xbox controllers, there are four LED lights in the center to indicate what player number you are since up to four controllers are supported. No price information has been released yet but the Stratus XL game controller releases this fall.

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