Steering Wheels

GTPlanet recently had the opportunity to sit down with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe’s President and CEO, Jim Ryan, for a round-table discussion on the business end of the Gran Turismo franchise.

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.

The Logitech G25 was one of the first steering wheels to introduce a clutch pedal and gated 6-speed shifter.  It’s success has prompted other wheel manufacturers like Fanatec to jump in the game, fueling competition in this niche market to new heights.  Now, with the G25 pushing 3 years old, everyone is watching Logitech to make a move.

A few of the first hands-on comments have been popping up around the web by people who actually got to play Gran Turismo 5: Prologue with the new Logitech Driving Force GT wheel, and so far, they are good. While these are just impressions from the floor at the Game Developers Conference (and not full reviews), it is interesting that the force feedback is getting so much attention. Hopefully, these folks have experience with other force-feedback wheels, and can actually detect an improvement from the older games.

Logitech has just announced the all-new Driving Force GT wheel for Gran Turismo 5 Prologue! This is the first wheel of its kind that has a dial on the wheel itself to allow the user to adjust things on the car in real time, such as brake bias and damper settings. The force-feedback feature has also been given more power, and most importantly, the illuminated GT logo in the center can now be pressed to blow the car’s horn in the game.