Logitech purchased gaming headset maker Astro for $85 million in 2017 and bought mic producer Blue Microphones for $177 million one 12 months later. Now, it’s merging each into its Logitech G model for players and streamers — however whereas Astro will largely proceed, the Blue model is getting axed.
“Will the Blue Microphones model go away?” reads a query in Logitech’s brand merger FAQ. “We might be holding the Yeti model and shifting it beneath Logitech G. The Blue identify might be used to explain our applied sciences,” the reply begins.
In the meantime, the Astro model “will proceed to dwell on as a premium console audio product sequence beneath the Logitech G model,” says the corporate, including that Logitech truly plans to launch a brand new Astro product within the close to future.
“We’re very enthusiastic about Astro as a product sequence beneath Logitech G,” Logitech provides later.
“The Blue identify might be used to explain our applied sciences”
You possibly can already see the transition taking part in out on Logitech’s web site, which nonetheless sells Yeti and even Snowball microphones that merely come “with Blue VO!CE” however now not hyperlinks to a definite Blue web site or product web page. (The Wayback Machine exhibits me this isn’t a model new change — Logitech’s been including “Yeti” microphones “with Blue VO!CE” to its web site for months.) Astrogaming.com, nonetheless, nonetheless exists.
Logitech’s rivals usually haven’t axed acquired manufacturers with a identified legacy. Corsair, which devoured up sufficient items to grow to be a billion-dollar firm in 2020, nonetheless sells controllers beneath Scuf Gaming (bought in 2019), PCs beneath Origin PC (additionally 2019) and streaming gear beneath Elgato (2018).
HP sells headphones beneath HyperX, although it purchased that firm solely two years in the past. (HP did as soon as purchase a boutique gaming PC firm known as Voodoo, solely to briefly promote methods “with Voodoo DNA” earlier than giving up on players for some time.) THX hasn’t gone away because it was bought by Razer — it did eliminate Nextbit after promising it could keep a largely impartial firm, however Nextbit solely had the one telephone.
Logitech itself hasn’t killed off Final Ears, for that matter, the headphone and Bluetooth speaker model it purchased for $34 million in 2008. It’s nonetheless the UE Increase, not the Logitech Increase. Logitech’s flight stick model Saitek nonetheless has its personal model, too, even when Logitech does promote a Logitech G X56 H.O.T.A.S. on its web site. So does Jaybird, which it purchased in 2016. Possibly it’s solely a matter of time.
It’s not clear why Logitech is minimizing its influential manufacturers Astro and Blue, which outlined the high-end gaming headset class and the microphone-for-streamers class, respectively, however I’m wondering if Logitech merely determined it had to decide on between Blue and Yeti — and Yeti was the identify that rang out.
“I’m completely satisfied it’s persevering with. I want the Blue identify was persevering with,” Blue Microphones co-founder Skipper Sensible tells The Verge. “I’d moderately see Blue, as a result of it represents a sequence and an concept and a tradition and a model,” he provides, mentioning that the identify stands for Baltic Latvian Common Electronics to honor his Latvian co-founder Martins Saulespurens. Nonetheless, he says, he doesn’t have any enterprise telling Logitech what to do with it. “I don’t have any possession or rights to it. I offered it. I perceive that and settle for it.”
Sensible and Saulespurens based Neat Microphones as effectively, which was bought by Turtle Seashore, and nonetheless design microphones collectively for different corporations at Stray Electrons with former Blue inventive director Ken Niles. They are saying: “Because the founders of Blue Microphones, we wish to thank everybody who has bought and loved a Blue mic.”
We suggest each Blue and Neat microphones in our greatest mics for podcasting information.
Logitech is pitching the top of the Blue model as a easy synergy play: you’ll be capable of management all of your previously Blue, Astro, and Logitech Creator merchandise within the Logitech G software program suite when all’s stated and completed. Me, I do something I can to get distant from peripheral producers’ software program: I can’t wait till Home windows lets me management my Logitech mouse’s RGB lighting later this 12 months.
Replace, June ninth: Added feedback from Skipper Sensible, co-founder of Blue Microphones.
