Fantaec has revealed the Gran Turismo DD Pro, the first direct drive wheel designed for PlayStation 5 and the fruits of the sim racing company’s partnership with Polyphony Digital for the upcoming release of Gran Turismo 7. The Gran Turismo DD Pro will release in March 2022 alongside GT7.
Direct drive racing wheels do away with the belts and gears of lower priced racing wheels to deliver much smoother steering, more and more refined force feedback, and do so with a smaller form factor. The GT DD Pro wheel base offers 5Nm of torque as standard, but that can be boosted up to 8 Nm of torque when using a separately sold Boost Kit 180.
The wheel base will be obscured by the Gran Turismo branded steering wheel, which is covered with all of the PlayStation buttons that you would expect, and more. There’s four coloured directional toggles so that you can switch vehicle settings on the fly as you race. At the top of the wheel’s main body is a white OLED display and a RevLED strip to give feedback on what the car’s doing and the settings you’re fiddling with.
And finally we come to the pedals. This is a two-pedal set that can be expanded with a Tuning Kit, Clutch Kit and Load Cell Kit for those that want them.
Though it will be marketed heavily with the PS5 and Gran Turismo 7 in mind, the Gran Turismo DD Pro is also compatible with PlayStation 4 and major racing games on PC.
The Gran Turismo DD Pro will be available to pre-order tomorrow, starting from €699.95 / $699.95, the box featuring the new wheel base, the GT-branded steering wheel, a two-pedal set, table clamp, and equipment for mounting all of this to a wheel stand of your choosing.
Gran Turismo 7 is coming out for PS5 and PS4 on 4th March 2022, one of several surprise cross-generational release considering its original announcement – if you want to upgrade from PS4 to PS5, you’ll be able to pay the $10 difference to do so. Polyphony has recently been releasing a string of behind the scenes videos to showcase features such as its livery editor, tease returning series tracks, and its line up of over 400 cars.
Source: Press release
camdaz
It looks to be a good setup and I would highly recommend a direct drive wheel (and the load cell brake pedal), but if you love racing games like me I would seriously think about getting the DD1. There’s a lot of folk saying the CSL DD (same motor) should come with the 8nm power pack as it’s way underpowered using the 5nm pack.
I also think it’s a rip-off to charge around £100 just to get the kit before Christmas!