Vole revives Sidewinder brand with gaming mouse

The Microsoft Sidewinder Mouse has been designed by the Vole's in-house hardware team, as opposed to its previous effort, the Habu, which was designed in conjunction with gaming specialists Razer. The new mouse features a tasteful red and black decor, as well as more buttons than you can shake a stick at.

Yes, there's a scroll wheel, as well as the usual array of buttons. But there's also an LCD readout which you can use to track ammo counts or suchlike. There's a 'quick turn' button, which vaguely seems to spin you 360 degrees, in an FPS, using a macro - which some might class as cheating. There's DPi adjustment on the fly for those critical sniping moments as well as a button that launches the Vista Game Explorer window, for quickly launching games from the desktop. So far, so... gimmicky.

Microsoft has designed in a weight cartridge system, which allows the addition and removal of small weights to tailor the feel of the mouse to individual preferences, and the cord has a specially designed cable management system to minimise and pull or restriction.

The Sidewinder brand was a big name in the late '90s, when Microsoft joysticks and gamepads were all the rage. The Microsoft Sidewinder was the perfect accompaniment to X-Wing v Tie Fighter, and the Sidewinder gamepad v2 was the early forerunner of the Xbox 360 pad.

The mouse will retail in October for a mere $79. Has Microsoft redefined the gaming mouse, or created yet another gimmicky also-ran? We're sure gamers will be lining up to give their opinion. µ