Video game live streaming has become big business in recent years, as anyone who frequents Twitch will tell you. The most popular broadcasters have millions of subscribers, some with even full-time careers. This appears to be the target market for Munich-based Elgato, which announced Stream Deck, a programmable LCD control center.
The Stream Deck has a total of 15 LCD keys spread over three rows, which can be configured to perform a total of 210 actions – whether it’s adjusting audio, greeting / thanking subscribers, to display your Twitter username in the bottom third, or even to bring up memes to the screen. It is meant to free you from using keyboard shortcuts and the daunting prospect of memorizing dozens of them.
Of course, Elgato will provide you with accompanying software, so that you can customize the available functions to your liking. You can create custom icons to really personalize the Stream Deck. It will even let you create folders, so you can nest common actions together.
The Stream Deck connects to your machine via USB, has dimensions of 118 x 84 x 21 mm and weighs 190 g. It is compatible with both Windows 10 (64-bit) and macOS 10.11.
According to the website, it will be available in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Spain. Currently, it is on pre-order in the US at $ 149.95, Australia at 199 AUD, New Zealand at 229.99 NZD, and in Germany at 149.95 EUR.
Elgato says the Stream Deck will start shipping in May, although the New Zealand retailer says it will launch in late April.
