Acer tapping internal gamers to influence 'hardcore' gaming products

Acer's Nitro Black Edition
Aspire V Nitro: An FPS cruncher

Acer CEO Jason Chen has said that the company is tapping into its internal hordes of hardcore gamers to guide product development of its upcoming hardcore gaming products.

Speaking to TechRadar, the Taiwan-based company's chief confirmed that Acer will launch new notebooks, desktop PCs and monitors in 2015 with the "video and audio quality that people are looking for".

He said: "Within the company we're inviting employees who are gamers - some of them hardcore - to share their knowledge. We're also talking to external gamers and developing our user group so that we understand the requirements of gamers better and come up with products that they appreciate."

Finer details

According to Chen, Acer is gathering feedback on specific features to influence "a whole series of products" beyond its current range gaming notebooks and desktop PCs.

He said: "We pay lots of attention to the details to make sure that what we're coming out with can address a particular group of users who are sensitive, keen and passionate about their experiences.

"People might want a one-button solution where they can go into Turbo Mode for faster speed, for example, which is a simple feature that we can do. Or they might want thermal solution, like a fan, or lighting [in the casing] that provides a different experience."

Acer has mainly catered for the low-to-mid-range gaming segment in recent years, but recently unveiled beefy Aspire V Nitro laptops in August with dedicated mobile GPUs.

Commenters have pointed out that the Nvidia GTX 860 mobile GPU in its most recent gaming laptop, the Aspire V Nitro Black Edition 4K, may be too underpowered to play games in 4K at playable frame rates. When questioned on this, Chen simply said that the Black Edition 4K is a "capable gaming machine", a statement we'll be looking to question when we put it through our rigorous lab tests.

Kane Fulton
Kane has been fascinated by the endless possibilities of computers since first getting his hands on an Amiga 500+ back in 1991. These days he mostly lives in realm of VR, where he's working his way into the world Paddleball rankings in Rec Room.