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Racing games are a good way to experience the joys of driving without having to go out, getting stuck in traffic, and letting your road rage get the better of you. They also allow you to drive cars that you'd probably never be able to afford and destroy a town in Mexico without any consequences. However, if you really want to get into the driver's seat, you can spice things up with a racing wheel.
Fanatec has revealed the Gran Turismo DD Pro for the upcoming Gran Turismo 7, the first direct drive gaming wheel for the PlayStation. Unfortunately, if you think the PS5 is expensive, the wheel costs more than the console itself, a nice $699.95. Considering the equipment, and what Fanatec says it can do, that price seems about right.
The full package comes with a sleek Gran Turismo themed wheel, a two-pedal set, and a direct drive hub. It provides 5 Nm of torque, which can be upgraded to 8 Nm with the separately sold Boost Kit 180. The steering wheel has been designed by Gran Turismo developer Polyphony Digital, and comes with an OLED display and diffused RevLED strip that offers the driver visual information. It also houses four 5-way directional sticks and all the PlayStation controller inputs in case you want to use it to beat Bloodborne.
You might just need the wheel to beat Gran Turismo 7's AI racers as Polyphony has been working to make them smarter. The developer reportedly collaborated with Sony's AI division to explore the possibilities of artificial intelligence when it comes to the racing sim. The research involved AI using the same cues a human driver might to learn how to drive fast and well. As a result, the AI eventually learned how to drive and started achieving lap timings within the top 10 percent of human players.
The AI studied hundreds of laps in order to achieve this and eventually placed 4.5 seconds faster than the median human, and 3.3 seconds slower than the fastest human. Hopefully they haven't fed the AI too much information, we don't want Judgement day to arrive sooner than expected.