Well, that’s unexpected! Today Sony Interactive Entertainment announced that it has entered into agreement to acquire Audeze — the world renown audiophile headphone maker. If that sounds confusing to you, let me try and make it clearer.
Audeze makes some of the best audio listening equipment known to man. They specialize in Planar Magnetic headphones like the impressive LCD-GX that Leo reviewed a couple of years ago. Gamers will note the recent release of the Audeze Maxwell which has garnered a ton of positive reviews as the best wireless gaming headset at the moment.
“Audeze is a premier brand for headphones, and this acquisition highlights Sony Interactive’s focus on innovation and providing the best audio experience to PlayStation players,”
Hideaki Nishino, Senior Vice President, Platform Experience at Sony Interactive Entertainment.
On the other hand, we have SIE, more simply known as PlayStation, which makes some of the best interactive entertainment also known to man. And with games like God of War Ragnarok, Spider-man-2 and Ghost of Tsushima becoming more similar to Hollywood blockbuster movies, it’s no surprise that gaming audio is a big deal.
Hideaki goes onto explain why this is so important to Sony: “We’re excited to bring Audeze’s expertise into the PlayStation ecosystem, building on the great strides we’ve made with PlayStation 5’s Tempest 3D AudioTech and the Pulse 3D wireless headset.“
So what does that mean? Sony has been really trying to expand its gaming hardware selection and so you can soon expect to see more Sony gaming headphones designed and built by Audeze. The question I have though is will Audeze headsets become exclusive to PlayStation? That remains to be seen.
Regardless, this is exciting news and I’m curious to see how this will change gaming audio for PlayStation going forward.