The selection of budget steering wheels this generation hasn’t been anything to write home about. Thrustmaster basically has a monopoly on the sub £/$100 market with its T80 steering wheel. However, popular Japanese accessory manufacturer HORI is looking to open more options to consumers with its new HORI Racing Wheel Apex (RWA) launching November 21.
The Sony-licensed wheel looks decent with a full 11″ rim and a built-in mounting clamp. The pedals appear to be of the same standard set by the Thrustmaster, with full plastic accelerator and brake pedals. The retractable foot-rest visible in the images looks to be a unique feature over the T80 for those looking at the best options in this price range. Another interesting observation is that the Amazon listing states that the pedals do have customizable input sensitivity. If this is relatively in-depth, this could be a very valuable inclusion.
Another listed feature talks about the 270 degree steering wheel range and a built-in ‘Quick Handling’ mode which then limits the rotation to 180 degrees for those who want a more racing-esque wheel set-up. The actual aesthetics of the wheel and pedal combo does look aligned to the T80 but the inclusion of the red centering-line in the middle of the rim is nice since even the middle-of-the-road T150 doesn’t include this. The placing of the buttons does harken back to the days of incredibly cheaply-made wheels on the PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 unfortunately. Thrustmaster definitely has the edge in the aesthetics department.
It’s great to see PlayStation making a more concerted effort to give wheel options to those more casual racing fans who may not want to invest in the more eccentric steering wheels preferred by dedicated sim fans. Although we imagine this won’t tickle the fancy of many of the more hardcore racing/driving moguls, it’s important a level of competition remains within the steering wheel peripheral space. Who knows, maybe this could be the first step toward HORI making a more expansive wheel.
The HORI RWA launches November 21 and is compatible with PS3, PS4 and PC.
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Budget wheels, IMO, are very tricky. There are budget wheels and then there are cheap wheels, and this appears to be of the cheap variety. I think the greatest example of a proper budget wheel is the driving force GT. You had ffb, and you could actually improve your lap times significantly. If they were to bring that wheel back, I’d buy it in a heartbeat. I wish they could just stick an extra $50 on this and use ffb. I guess they’re great if you want that sim-ish feel, but are completely unconcerned about being competitive.
I’ve been looking for a budget wheel for quite a while now, but, at least here in Canada, I either pay over $300 or get one of these, and I’m willing to do neither
I paid $99 for my DFGT in 2010 and used it exclusively for more than 2 years, probably putting upwards of 1000 hours on it. Only issue I had was a bit of wearing at the base of the brake pedal which I fixed by taking it apart and modifying it a bit. Heck of a piece of kit for that price and a real bargain. Shame it’s not on the market anymore as I think it would bring a lot of people into the next level of sim racing, away from the controllers. Even on Assetto Corsa on pc I still see a lot of DFGT users on the RSR Live Timing Leaderboards.
As an entry level, budget “bungie cord” wheel, for kids or casuals who want little more than gamepad whenever they switch from their favourite fps to some driving game, this looks ok (as T80 is).
But, if driving /racing genre is a must for you, then for a little more than another 70€ you get T150 with ffb (and 1080 deg.rotation…) and that makes a completely different experience.
So, if in doubt to spend 99€ or 179€ , I’d recommend saving few bucks for the later, or you will end up buying this HORI and after a month a T150 (or G29 or T300) , when you realize you need something more realistic.
I believe if you decide to buy a steering wheel to play must be a good one and not an entry level. Save money and buy a decent wheel not plastic toy.
Listed at $99.99 U.S. on Amazon. I’m not a person who needs serious gear, so this might just work for me. Anything is better than Thrustmaster.
Keep in mind, it doesn’t look like it has FFB so it’s essentially a glorified controller.
No worries here. I’ve never used a FFB wheel as I have only used a standard controller and a Thrustmaster wheel that turned out to be complete garbage anyway. This would still be a step up for me.
No clutch?? Right. I cant stand wheel companies that release padels without a clutch…whats the damn point in it than?? And why are they giving manual drivers the middle finger? Byebye.
It’s a budget wheel, what do you expect?
Cars that use paddles typically don’t have a clutch. That’s why.
Has it got force feedback?
There’s no mention of Force Feedback in the Amazon listing and given that the T80 doesn’t, I doubt it.
Looks cool to me. We should be ecstatic whenever a new, lower-cost option opens up for players wanting to enter our world. Next to Lemons and Chumpcar, sim racing is THE best way to get into motorsport if you don’t have the crazy cash required for a racecar, maintenance, and tires.
Props to Hori and Sony for creating this wheel for entry-level players. We need them like we need fresh air.
HORIble