I honestly don’t know where to start with this pair of trains that PC maker NZXT and Artifact Studios fashion apparel announced last night. At first, I thought it was just a fancy sneaker with an RTX 3080 ground into the heel – a feat that, during the scarcity of a global graphics card, would have made my soul shed huge tears of salt of bitter displeasure. to hear. Upon closer inspection, however, they seem to have built an entire PC inside this awesome piece of footwear, with the NZXT cooler, motherboard and fans all visible through the side panel obvious purple. It’s an impressive trick, to be sure, but I have so many questions as well. How does it run? How many feet per second can you travel in these things? And will the fans help keep my toes nice and cool, or will they take my coins to full length?
I’m kidding, of course, but it begs the question of whether this is the logical end of the weird love business of the gaming industry with shoes right now. After all, once you’ve put a whole PC inside your gaming boot, where else are you going? Places that double as control cables?
So far, it doesn’t look like the NZXT x RTFKT shoes have a proper name yet, but here’s what they look like in the flesh.
RACE MASTER SNEAKERS, @NZXT DRIP 💧 pic.twitter.com/OuNrEA6j4R
– Artifact Studios (@RTFKTstudios) January 20, 2021
It’s also not clear when or when they’ll be available for purchase, either, as the Artifact website just points a sign-up button for their current mailing list. Of course, the same thing Artifact Studios has said about the shoes so far in a single tweet: “We are delighted to announce a partnership with NZXT, empowering RTFKT and the creator community to create the future of fashion and collectibles, empowering the scene, the community and our cunning ideas with their amazing properties and love of games. ”
Does this mean that people will be able to create their own custom versions of these PC shoes at some point down the line? Or will it be a one-size-fits-all deal? Who can say.
These NZXT sneakers are not the first game-related shoes made by Artifact. Take a quick look at their Instagram page, for example, and their deceptive collection of sneakers is all the way back to April 2019. Air Jordans is inspired by Minecraft, pink Fall Guys trains with eyes, and PlayStation 5 trains with cute little buttons on the tongue to name just a few.
Would you buy a pair of PC sneakers if you had the chance?