MSI introduces new gaming mechnical keyboard. (I am shocked. /s)

I am not surprised one bit by this news.  I was wondering when the next shoe would drop and indeed, MSI announced that it is introducing the GK-701 gaming keyboard.  Some places had this board for sale for a while apparently....  Any guesses what it might be?  If you say Cherry MX switches, you are right.  If you say it's got red color to go with the MSI gaming logo theme, you are right.  If you say that it's got some cute lighting effects, you are right.  One more.  If you say that it has media control keys, you are right!  This one has a standard 104 ANSI keyboard layout, at least in the US and ticked all the right box with a reasonable mainstream market price around $120 US dollars.  While some companies are going all out gaga with full RGB lighting, some remained more or less with just a single or dual color LEDs.  I really do think that RGB lighting may be more expansive than expected or that Cherry is still having issues meeting demand.  In any case, the sub $150 price clearly reflect that reality.

GK-701 appears to have the cherry brown switches.  That was a bit of surprise as most of the time, the gaming crowd seemed to have preferred the linear switches such as the Cherry MX red or the black (with a more stiff spring).  However, Logitech and a few others have defied the trend.  So, maybe the gaming keyboard market is moving away from linear spring toward a more tactile, but not overly so, kind like the MX brown.  This is worth watching as there's some change in the air if that's the case.

Anyhow, this news should not surprised anyone.  Asus has already established a mechanical keyboard line and with Gigabyte introducing something just about a month ago, it is no shock to anyone who watches the big 3 Taiwanese computer/components manufacturers to see this coming.