Logitech bought gaming headset maker Astro for $85 million in 2017 and bought microphone maker Blue Microphones for $177 million a year later. It’s now merging both into its Logitech G brand for gamers and streamers, but while Astro will largely continue, the Blue branding is being phased out.
“Will the Blue Microphones Brand Go Away?” read a question in Logitech Brand Merger FAQ. “We will keep the Yeti brand and move it under Logitech G. The Blue name will be used to describe our technologies,” the reply begins.
Meanwhile, the Astro brand will “live on as a series of premium console audio products under the Logitech G brand,” the company says, adding that Logitech actually plans to launch a new Astro product in the near future.
“We are very excited about Astro as a product series under Logitech G,” Logitech adds later.
“The name Blue will be used to describe our technologies”
You can already see the transition taking place on Logitech’s website, which still sells Yeti microphones and even Snowballs which simply come “with Blue VO!CE” but no longer link to a separate Blue website or product page. (The Wayback Machine shows me this isn’t a brand new change: Logitech has been adding “Yeti” microphones “with Blue VO! CE” to its website for months.) Astrogaming. comhowever, it still exists.
The Yeti still has a “Blue” badge on the physical hardware, for now. Otherwise it’s just a Logitech G Yeti.Image: Logitech
Logitech’s rivals typically haven’t eliminated acquired brands with a known heritage. Corsair, which gobbled up enough chunks to become a billion-dollar company in 2020, still sells controllers under Scuf Gaming (purchased 2019), PCs under Origin PC (also 2019), and streaming devices under Elgato (purchased 2019).2018).
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HP sells headphones with HyperX, although it only bought that company two years ago. (HP once bought a boutique gaming PC company called Voodoo, only to briefly sell systems “with Voodoo DNA” before giving up on gamers for a while.) THX hasn’t gone away since it was bought by Razer – it did away with Nextbit after promising it would remain a largely independent company, but Nextbit only had one phone.
Logitech itself didn’t kill Ultimate Ears—for that matter, the brand of Bluetooth headphones and speakers it bought for $34 million in 2008. It’s still UE Boom, not Logitech Boom. Saitek, Logitech’s flight stick brand, also still has its own brand, even though Logitech sells a Logitech G X56 HOTAS on its website. So does Jaybird, which he bought in 2016. Maybe it’s just a matter of time.
It’s unclear why Logitech is downplaying its influential Astro and Blue brands, which respectively defined the high-end gaming headset category and the microphone category for streamers, but I wonder if Logitech simply decided it had to choose. between Blue and Yeti… and Yeti was the name that resonated.
“I am happy that it is continuing. I wish the Blue name would continue,” says Blue Microphones co-founder Skipper Wise The limit. “I’d rather see Blue, because it represents a series, an idea, a culture and a brand,” he adds, noting that the name stands for Baltic Latvian Universal Electronics to honor its Latvian co-founder Martins Saulespurens. However, he says, he has no right to tell Logitech what to do with it. “I have no ownership or right to it. I sold it. I understand and accept it.”
Wise and Saulespurens also founded Neat Microphones, which was bought by Turtle Beach, and still design microphones together for other companies around the world. Stray electrons with former Blue creative director Ken Niles. They say: “As the founders of Blue Microphones, we would like to thank everyone who has purchased and enjoyed a Blue microphone.”
We recommend both Blue and Neat microphones in our guide to the best microphones for podcasting.
Logitech is pitching the end of the Blue brand as a simple synergy game: You’ll be able to control all of your formerly Blue, Astro, and Logitech Creator products in the Logitech G software suite when all is said and done. Me, I do everything I can to move away from peripheral manufacturers’ software: I can’t wait for Windows to let me control the RGB lighting of my Logitech mouse later this year.
Update, June 9: Added comments from Skipper Wise, co-founder of Blue Microphones.
