Razer's CEO hints it has big plans for the mobile gaming market

Razer is making major plans to disrupt the mobile gaming industry, much like it has with the PC gaming audience. At least, that’s what the company’s CEO Tan Min-liang says it plans to do. In a new interview, he stated that mobile gaming will be “a huge part of our business” in the future.

Razer got its start by designing and selling the first PC mice products that specifically targeted gamers, and has since created a successful business making PC gaming accessories such as mice, headsets, keyboards, and more for that hardcore audience. A few years ago, it started creating and selling actual gaming PC laptops that offered a lot of power in a relatively slim and portable package. In his chat with the South China Morning Post, Min-liang stated that there were no major laptops made specifically for gamers before Razer’s products came out. He added, “right now I don’t see any mobile device or software platform that really fulfills the needs of the [mobile] gamer.”

Razer has already made some behind-the-scenes moves in the mobile space. In 2015, it bought Ouya, the company that tried and failed to successfully launch a Android-based game console. In January of 2017, it acquired Nextbit, the company that released the acclaimed Robin smartphone. Min-liang stated these moves will give Razer the talent and experience “to work on next generation devices.”

Exactly what those people at Razer are working on is still cloaked in secrecy, at least for now. It’s unknown if Razer will try to launch its own gaming-oriented Android phone, or if it will simply offer gaming accessories and services for current handsets. We have seen gaming-based mobile phones crash and burn in the past, such as the Nokia N-Gage and the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, but perhaps Razer can learn some lessons from those failed attempts and release a phone that will have mass appeal for mobile gamers.