Off the top, a news item Feb. 24 entitled “Kingston Technology to Sell HyperX Gaming Division to HP Inc.” makes it look like HP Inc. is jumping headlong into the gaming business. While this is not exactly true, because HP has long been in that business, it is indicative of much more than that.
Indeed, Fountain Valley, Calif.-based Kingston Technology, a market leader in memory products and various technology solutions, announced the agreement to sell HyperX, its gaming division, to HP Inc. for $425 million in cash. The acquisition will help enable HP’s strategy to drive growth in its Personal Systems business, where gaming and peripherals are highly profitable segments.
Kingston will retain its DRAM (dynamic RAM), flash and SSD (solid-state disk) products for gamers and enthusiasts. The acquisition is expected to close in calendar Q2 2021.
IT innovation often comes from gaming industry
It’s long been known that a great deal of IT innovation comes out of the consumer gaming industry–innovation that leads directly to major advancements on the enterprise IT side of the business. So that’s how this all fits together; plus, HP Inc. has been busy building more powerful laptops and workstations to handle data-heavy gaming applications that use high-definition video and audio.
HyperX’s product portfolio spans a range of gaming peripherals, including headsets, keyboards, mice, mouse pads, USB microphones and console accessories. HP stands to gain a huge amount of hardware and software intellectual property from the transaction.
“We continue to advance our leadership in Personal Systems by modernizing compute experiences and expanding into valuable adjacencies,” Enrique Lores, HP Inc.’s President and CEO, said in a media advisory. “We see significant opportunities in the large and growing peripherals market, and the addition of HyperX to our portfolio will drive new sources of innovation and growth for our business.”
PC gaming continues to rise in popularity
PC gaming continues to be one of the most popular forms of video gaming, with the PC hardware industry anticipated to be worth $70 billion by 2023. The global peripherals market is expected to grow to $12.2 billion by 2024, with gaming peripherals representing a disproportionate share of this growth.
“Both of our companies thrive because we focus on our employees and share the same core values and culture,” John Tu, Kingston co-founder and CEO, said in a media advisory. “David Sun (Co-founder and COO) and I saw the possibilities for the HyperX business and its employees and we both realized that this change brings a brighter future for HyperX.”
HP has built a large and growing global gaming portfolio in recent years, led by its OMEN brand and a world-class ecosystem of hardware, software, content and services. The company continues to push progression in gaming with platforms like the OMEN 15 gaming laptop and the HP Pavilion Gaming 16 laptop.
Beyond devices, HP has developed the OMEN Gaming Hub, a destination for players to connect, customize and explore their gear and games. Adding HyperX to HP’s broader gaming ecosystem, the company said, will deliver innovative new experiences across everything gamers see, hear and touch.