Cherry buys Swedish peripherals provider Xtrfy. With the takeover, the company wants to increase its market presence in the lucrative gaming sector, where only the buttons but not the input devices from Cherry have played a role so far.
In the press release Xtrfy hailed as a provider of “high-performance, innovative mice, keyboards and headsets”. Mentioning all categories makes it clear that it's about a full range that doesn't stop at pure input devices.
Cherry also expects the takeover to provide “greater access to the growing gaming and eSports community” as well as a strengthening of the marketing area “both through distributors and in the end customer business”. Additionally, Cherry sees gains from accessing Xtrfy's contacts and connections to the eSports scene, which will help to grow the gaming business.
Gaming is done by others
So far, Cherry itself has not been able to gain a foothold in the gaming segment. Although every keyboard is good for gaming: The product that is most likely to present itself as a “gaming” device based on the feature set was a modernized variant of the G80 keyboard with RGB lighting. However, despite its added value, the feature set remains sparse, at least when compared to alternatives advertised as special gaming products.
So far, Cherry has left the gaming field to other manufacturers. Only buttons were developed for the gaming profile, such as the MX Speed (test), which, like the extremely flat MX Ultra Low Profile (test), were then launched by Corsair as an exclusive partner. Cherry now wants to save itself this detour and also focus on the end customer business.
No Cherry at Xtrfy yet
Xtrfy is an unusual choice, though. The manufacturer only offers a handful of mice and keyboards. According to the price comparison, there is not a single model with Cherry's MX buttons; Xtrfy has traditionally used Kailh in keyboards, although the hot-swappable models can be quickly swapped out should the new owner so desire. For Cherry, the added value is clearly in getting a foot in the door and taking over a provider that has already positioned itself as a “gaming brand” with a broader product range that can be expanded.
The editors would like to thank ComputerBase reader “Inkuda” for pointing this out!