Thrustmaster Gran Turismo Sport Wheel is Direct Drive

Mark Puc, who community members may know better as “AussieStig”, visited the Gran Turismo Sport launch event at the Olympic Stadium in London as a correspondent for Inside Sim Racing.

When Mark first reported that Thrustmaster showcased what could be the long-awaited successor to the famed Thrustmaster RS 500 racing wheel, he already suspected that the new Thrustmaster Gran Turismo Sport branded racing wheel housed a direct drive motor.  Since Thrustmaster had not yet officially introduced the racing wheel and did not share an official product name, we could only guess what the wheel has in store.

The highly detailed wheel features a leather and chrome finish and houses a set of metal paddle shifters, the well-known PlayStation buttons with D-Pad, 4 chrome dials, and two analog sticks. The back of the wheelbase showed us that there was definitely something interesting going on.

To find out what secrets the new Thrustmaster wheelbase might hold, the people of Gran Turismo’s biggest community website “GTPlanet“, have now popped the question to Polyphony Digital’s Kazunori Yamauchi. Surprisingly, Kazunori immediately confirmed that the new Thrustmaster wheel is indeed a ‘Direct Drive’ unit.

 

Kazunori answered – “I always felt with other wheels that something was wrong – that something was off. When we actually used the torque meter to measure the torque on those other steering wheels, there were some that had a high peak but would then drop off – they would only give the torque in spikes. So we went and redesigned it so that the torque delivery is linear.

Even when you play with the wheel for hours at a time, the torque delivery will remain stable.”

 

The wheel base also looks to utilize something that is resembling the Thrustmaster patented semi quick-release system which could indicate that the in the near future, the Thrustmaster Gran Turismo Sport branded racing wheel could get its own line of optional rims. (Keep in mind that this is pure speculation)

We expect to hear more details about the Thrustmaster Gran Turismo Sport branded racing wheel at the upcoming E3 – Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles on June 14-16, 2016.

While Direct Drive wheels where previously the playing ground of high-end brands such as SimXperience and Leo Bodnar, Thrustmaster will be the first of the more common brands to release a Direct Drive wheel. Back in 2014, the famed Fanatec brand also hinted that they were working on their own Direct Drive unit but they have not communicated any more news since then. We wonder if the new Thrustmaster product reveal will trigger competing brands to rethink their product line?

 

Official Webpage – www.thrustmaster.com