Well, at least we love Hannover, which is where we spent a long and snowy German springtime at the consumer/electronics/gaming expo known worldwide as CeBIT.

This is the second year that Razer has had a large booth in one of the 30+ massive exhibition halls at CeBIT. With the memory of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) still in our heads, what was crystal clear is how CeBIT completely dwarfs CES. This expo is one big mama and it takes the full week it runs to walk all the massive halls.

On March 9th we opened our portion of the expo by announcing to the world our new audio product, Barracuda IAS (Integrated Audio Solution). From that day on our booth was mobbed by European press, distributors, retailers and customers and Razer fans … everyone wanting to see the demonstration of the new audio product. I will post another blog in a few days to provide more details on and the story behind the Barracuda IAS.

Besides seeing the hourly Barracuda IAS show and demonstration, attendees viewed the upcoming Razer Tarantula Keyboard, or they could test drive a Copperhead and a Mantis mousing surface on one of our many PC’s.

The Razer booth babes, er I mean greeters, handed out Razer lanyards, shopping bags and rub off tattoos. If they look familiar they were the same “greeters” from last year’s Game Conference in Leipzig. Troopers that they are they drove from Leipzig to Hanover, a 4 1/2 hour drive the morning of the first day of the expo in the dark and in the snow.

Besides the usual rub-off Razer tattoos we had a extraordinary air brush tattoo artist and as you can see by the photos there were many Razer mobsters who availed themselves of his services. Some of the unique places he applied his craft were R-rated and cannot be shared in mixed company.

It is customary for these expos to sequester Razerguy in a press room giving interviews for Barracuda and Tarantula and I missed most of the fun on the exhibit floor. I was even too late to get an air brush tattoo (sob-sob). I guess I’ll have to hold out for the real thing (I hope my wife doesn’t read this blog).

One of the coolest things at the booth (the entire expo for that matter) was one of our gamer friends, Renkie a.k.a. The Blindguy
(no relation to Razerguy) who was demonstrating the remarkable positional audio of the Barracuda IAS. He was in fact playing “blind” (as in not being able to see his opponent on his screen) and competing via sound only. He took on all comers. On day one we offered a Razer Diamondback and other prizes for anyone who could beat him. After the first day we offered a prize for anyone who could get a frag off of him. Due in part to the audio positioning of the Barracuda and his amazing (freaky) skillz, he went undefeated for the entire week. He was even challenged by a few pro gamers from the WCG tournament. Results: 16-zip. Pwnership, ouch.

Many thanks to our Hamburg office staff for pulling this all together and to our wonderful main European distributor Jöllenbeck for all their support (they are the best!). A very special thank you to Celeste from our Singapore office who takes good care of Razerguy and makes certain that I take my vitamins.

And to all of our friends and fans (esp. the Blueprints guys) major thanks for stopping by and supporting us. Hope to see many of you at E3 in Los Angeles in May and our German gamers in Leipzig at GC in August 21-23.