Greetings gentlemen. Allow me to respond to these comments with a few of my own. First:
Bummer. When I first saw this post I mistook it for the ECCI Trackstar 7000 you own isamu. I would rather that wheel support the PS3. That is the one I have my eye on. If they were to ever make that wheel compatible with all systems I would definitely jump on it.
I can say with 1000% certainty that
NO ONE on this God given Earth wants the ECCI 7000 to work with PS3 more than I do. I have literally
begged John Pribble(the lead guy at ECCI) for it. It's not that he is opposed to it, it's just that in a nut-shell, it's too cost prohibitive and would ultimately raise the price of the already expensive ECCI 7000 to an astronomical $3500 or so. They would have to buy the hardware license allowing them to make their devices work on the PS3 and although John was reluctant to say how much the license is, I suspect it's probably somewhere in the hundreds of thousands.
Plus, John told me he has asked numerous 7000 customers or pre-customers if they'd be interested in console compatibility and NONE of them wanted anything to do with it. These are the commercial sim vendors or real racers who use the 7000 for sim training and are the die-hardest of hardcore sim freaks. The thoughts of even playing a console game is laughable to them. I'm glad I don't fall into that category. You guys know me by now: I am actually more of an arcade racing fan than anything else.
Bottom-line, PS3 compatibility is out of the picture for the forseeable future. I joked with John that if I hit the lotto I will buy the entire PS3 hardware license so he doesn't have to raise the price of the wheel
I can safely say, that I own enough racing games on the PC to keep me busy for a very long time so I am pretty content on this side of fence. GT5 will be amazing no doubt about it, but I will just play it with a pad just for kicks.
I don't know if you've seen my post just a few threads above but Shinge's (the owner and designer of Frex) last answer at the end of June was that he will advice on modification to the wheel if GT5 doesn't officially support Frex Simwheel. I think this has largely to do with the connection of gas/brake pedal since there's no connection from the pedal to the wheel similar to what you'd find on the G25/Fanatec wheel on the Frex. But it's just a matter of adding a compatible connectors for the G25, Fanatec or Frex own pedals.
As far as I know the Frex Simwheel, just like the Logitech FB wheel, is based largely on Immersion Technology Corporation Force Feedback so it should be compatible with PS3 and GT5.
As a former owner of the Frex wheel and a current owner of the PS3, I'm sorry to say you are mistaken.
I tried the Frex wheel on the PS3 when I had it. The console simply didn't recognize the device. Called it an unknown device. Just to be 100% sure, I fired up GT5P and nada, zilch, nothing.
I am fairly confident that the full version of GT5 will NOT work with the Frex wheel right out of the box. I saw that post and even made a comment about it. I don't know what the current status of Shige and the Sony PS3 license is, but if he does not obtain the official license to make the wheel work on the console, then what he is going to have to do, is supply some sort of external circuit board containing the same, or parts of the same circuit chips that logitech uses in their G25, so that the Frex can "talk" to the PS3. This is not unlike what my friend did with my Happ wheel. There is no other way he is going to make the Frex work with the PS3. It's either officially(license code, driver, etc) or unofficially(Logitech PCB enclosed in an external housing)
I am
very interested to see what Shige has up his sleeves regarding this situation.
For me the Simwheel is still a much better product that ECCI although I wouldn't dare throw the ECCI away if it magically appears on my doorstep this christmas.
As someone who's owned both wheels, I can say with 100% conviction, that the Frex is a toy compared to the 7000. The 7000 is in a league of its own, and even the guys from ISR has vouched for this. It's because of that particular episode a few months that I took the plunge on the 7000. I personally love the fact that it's so silent, unlike the Frex which was a lot noisier than I had hoped. For the record, I *did* enjoy the Frex during the time I used it. It's certainly light years ahead of anything Logitech or Fanatec has to offer.
