Hardware

Thrustmaster, the company which produces the T500RS – the “official” wheel for GT5 and GT6 – announced a new model today at the E3 game show in Los Angeles.

Sony’s latest console, the PlayStation 4, went on sale today in North America (Nov. 29 in Europe), officially kicking off the next generation of gaming hardware. (You can order one via this affiliate link, if you’d like to support GTPlanet.)

The PlayStation 4 was officially unveiled at Sony’s “PlayStation Meeting 2013” on Wednesday evening, and will be released at the end of this year (“Holiday 2013”).

Live Stream Begins February 20 at 23:00 GMT

All eyes will be on Sony’s “PlayStation Meeting 2013” on Wednesday, where they are widely expected to announce their next-generation console (GTPlanet will have links for the live-stream of the event available before it kicks off at 6:00pm Eastern Time [23:00 GMT]).

The last 12 months have been a busy year for Fanatec, who have been steadily updating their line of products aimed towards the more demanding sim racer.

The future of Logitech’s sim-racing steering wheel products has come under question since the company announced they “plan to discontinue other non-strategic products, such as speaker docks and console gaming peripherals, by the end of Calendar Year 2013,” in their latest quarterly earnings report.

As expected, no new Gran Turismo games were announced at E3 2012, which is being held this week in Los Angeles.

For many GT players a driving wheel is a must but, no matter what wheel you choose, you need a sturdy place to mount it. While there remains plenty of choice in the commercial driving rig market from such names as rSeat, Wheel Stand Pro and VisionRacer, many gamers also enjoy creating their own, often cheaper, and there are many threads in our Sim Racing Hardware forum of such builds.

The new “official” GT5 steering wheel, the Thrustmaster T500 RS, releases this Wednesday, and InsideSimRacing got their hands on an early unit to provide us with some much-needed details and first impressions.

One of the most frequent complaints about the popular Logitech Driving Force GT is the pedals. The brake, in particular, can be quite “squishy”, making it more difficult to accurately gauge the force being applied. Since the DFGT was released, several popular DIY mods have been shared in our forums, but this one is probably my favorite: simply wrap a small bungie cord around the brake pedal and hook it around the base of the unit, as YouTuber megadarren demonstrates above (thanks, TRC_Hunk).

Full details about the new “official” GT5 steering wheel, the Thrustmaster T500 RS, have now been released, and it looks like Kazunori Yamauchi’s original tweet hinting at the price was actually correct. It will be released on Wednesday, January 5, 2011 in North America and Europe for $599.99, £449.99, or €499.99 (it’s coming Jan. 25 in Japan). Thrustmaster is clearly targeting the higher end of the market with this price range, especially considering the T500’s H-pattern shifter (to be released in the next few “months”) is not included with the package.

With the launch of Gran Turismo 5, the steering wheel market is really heating up. Now, however, the bar has apparently been raised with the new Fanatec Porsche 911 GT2. The wheel is receiving high marks from users in our steering wheels forum, and there’s even more kind words from the hosts at InsideSimRacing, who called it part of the “best package” to play the game. Keep an eye on the wheel segment of InsideSimRacing’s Gran Turismo 5 review in the video above (you’ll find the wheel discussion begins at 24:45) for more, or watch Darin’s mini-feature on the GT2 here.