Whoever was out there lobbying MSI to make an RGB “foot switch”, congratulations?
That’s apparently the next peripheral line out of MSI, spotted online by Tom’s Hardware. Posts about the Liberator first appeared on MSI’s Facebook pages in Mandarin, although news about them only broadly surfaced this week.
The Liberator can connect to four other Liberators if you want to daisy chain some Dance Dance Revolution action in your house. There’s actually some cool accessibility potential here, although MSI is squarely advertising as an esports peripheral, focusing on shooters, fighting games, racing titles, MMOs and MOBAs. The fact that it’s a “foot switch” and not a “foot pedal” is important too: pedals allow for more analog inputs, whereas a foot switch just offers simpler, button-style presses.
A typeform page specifically asks users what extra features users might want, indicating that keyboard bindings can be rebound to the pedal. The below video has some questionable marketing though: I can’t quite work out why Monopoly Plus is being advertised as a game you’d want to use the Liberator with. Ubisoft’s Riders Republic is given more billing, which makes a lot more sense given all the skiing and bike riding involved.
There’s no indication that the Liberator will get a wide release. MSI aren’t even fronting the full cost of it themselves, but using a hybrid crowdfunding model where users can pre-purchase it for a discounted $TWD2790 ($127), well below the eventual retail price of $TWD3900 ($177).
I mean, it’s not the worst price for gaming pedals. Most racing “pedals” have to be plugged into a racing wheel or other device, or you have to fork out extra for a USB adapter to use them as standalone gear. So the Liberator has some logical value here, although using a pedal for copy-paste might be pushing it a bit.
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