Razer responds to Naga mouse DRM problems

You might think that when you spend over £50 on a mouse, that you'll be getting something a bit special. It usually gives you extra features like more buttons, higher build quality and often some impressive backend software to play with. Not in the case of Razer Naga owners, who found a broken online activation system was preventing them from using it at all – leaving them with a much more standard gaming rodent.

According to reports from consumers, no where on the Naga packaging does it say that you'll need an internet connection to activate the mouse or that unless you do so, you won't be able to access the software at all.

Razer's CEO, Min-Liang Tan, has released a statement explaining the problem and the reason Razer implemented an online activation system in the first place:

“We invented onboard memory for gaming mice many years ago and called it Synapse to allow gamers to bring their profiles with them on the go. However, we realized that we ran into another issue where we had to keep increasing the amount of memory onboard to provide for more storage and this resulted in higher and higher prices for gamers,” the statement reads (via TeamLiquid).

“We then invented Synapse 2.0 where we could provide almost limitless amount of storage for profiles, macros, etc in the cloud as opposed to being limited by physical memory.”

He clarified that gamers could use the mouse's software in an offline mode, but that they would need to activate first. That is all well and good, but what happens when the activation servers are down like they have been recently?

“I realize that we have had issues with the activation server, and we're making sure we get that sorted out.”

KitGuru Says: It seems like it would be pretty easy to simply have a small amount of onboard memory for those that want to make one or two profiles and then have remote storage for those that need a lot of them. Have any of you used the Naga mouse and run into problems? Let us know.

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