Turtle Beach has just announced that it is dropping the ROCCAT brand while continuing to develop its products, which will in future be sold under the title brand. In 2019, American gaming peripherals company Turtle Beach acquired German PC peripherals specialist ROCCAT. The brand was founded in Hamburg in 2006 by former Razer Europe vice-president Renê Korte. Although initially focused on Europe, Roccat’s success soon opened doors in the USA and some Asian countries.
Since the takeover, ROCCAT has been able to continue its activities as a Turtle Beach subsidiary, but with a degree of independence. On April 16, Turtle Bench officially announced that it would be abandoning the ROCCAT brand and that its existing product ranges would be fully integrated into the Turtle Beach brand.
Turtle Beach bought ROCCAT for $19.2 million to strengthen its presence in the PC sector, whereas the American brand had originally targeted the console market. By 2023, the brand had been fully merged with the parent company and was no longer a subsidiary. This was undoubtedly the first step towards globalization.
For the moment, it’s unclear how the teams will be impacted and the reasons for this re-branding. However, it’s clear that running two brands in a sector where it’s increasingly difficult to differentiate between PCs and consoles, may represent a marketing overhead that’s not particularly effective. We’ll be sure to ask the excellent Mikael Bertheau about this, as he’s been working hard for years to raise the brand’s profile.
The French translation of Turtle Beach’s announcement :
We want to bring a greater level of integration to our family of products for consoles, PCs and simulation games. We felt that time and resources would be better spent if we focused on a single brand and created a range of products that matter most to gamers.
Although we are retiring the ROCCAT brand, several of its iconic product lines, such as Vulcan, Kone, Burst and Sense, will be transferred to the Turtle Beach brand. Our commitment to PC products remains as strong as ever, and we have several revolutionary new products to introduce, as well as Turtle Beach-branded versions of existing and popular ROCCAT products that will remain in place.
