Official Gran Turismo 5 wheel costs £450

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 5 January, 2011

Thrustmaster T500RS out now.

The official Gran Turismo 5 steering wheel, the Thrustmaster T500RS, goes on sale today in Europe, Africa and Australia with an eye-watering RRP of £450/€500.

To celebrate, Sony's put out a video of the wheel in action, which you can see below.

The Thrustmaster T500RS is only the second ever wheel to be officially licensed for use with Sony's simulation series, apparently.

The T500 RS wheel and pedal set is said to be optimised for GT5. The wheel weighs 4.6kg; the pedal set 7.3kg. The gearshift levers, the wheel's central spokes section (30cm in diameter) and the pedal set are all entirely metal.

The wheel itself offers 1080° rotation. A motorized stop means the three full turns are adjustable. The magnetic sensor-based H.E.A.R.T (HallEffect AccuRate Technology) is incorporated into the wheel's steering mechanism. The wheel has 16-bit resolution and 65536 values on its steering axis.

"The goal that I set for the Thrustmaster team was to design for me the most precise wheel ever developed, without any latency – to accurately reproduce the sensations of GT5, and let users truly feel the emotions experienced by drivers on real racing circuits," said Polyphony Digital boss Kazunori Yamauchi.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (37) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • sfp_noodle #1 1 year ago

    Dear god how much!? My purchase of the G27 is looking even more of a bargain now. I could have bought 2 and a half for that price :|

  • Markitron #2 1 year ago

    Jesus, If you could afford to spend that on a fake steering wheel odds are you could afford one of the actual nicer cars in GT5; in which case you wouldnt really need to play the game.

  • fiery_jackass #3 1 year ago

    "let users truly feel the emotions experienced by drivers on real racing circuits"
    along with bonus senses of shame and regret from having shelled out £450 on a toy steering wheel.

  • Ranger101 #4 1 year ago

    And people were getting uppity about Fightsticks...

  • Dolly #5 1 year ago

    Have you got it in pink?

  • rivuzu #6 1 year ago

    "We're giving you the keys..."

    To what? It better be a large vault or safe of some sort, filled with cash to shell out for one of those. £450, for just a steering wheel?! Obscene! I've bought TE Fightsticks before for £130ish, and I thought I was mental at the time for doing that, but this... god almighty.

    You could buy two PS3s for that. :l

  • SteveHolt #7 1 year ago

    In the real world, a friend of mine recently bought a real car for 400€.

  • MajorMelchet #8 1 year ago

    A few things i am surprised are missing from this artical.

    This wheel currently only works with 1 game (GT5), every other PS3 racing game has no force feedback at all (same on the PC) "edit - what i mean is other games that do have force feedback on them (grid, dirt, shift etc and any PC racer) the FFB doesn't work with this wheel", sure they are working on PC drivers and trying to get updates added to other PS3 racing games to make the FFB work BUT still this wheel is being released and right now it works with only 1 game!!.

    The clutch on the pedal set does not work at this time for GT5, they have decided to not activate the cluth for GT5 until the 6 speed shifter comes out so you can't use the clutch with the included paddles just to tide you over.

    It's a cool looking gadget BUT to release it while it works with only 1 game and not even fully is just crazy.
    Edited by MajorMelchet at 05/01/11 @ 13:54

  • homerramone #9 1 year ago

    Think they are taken the piss - ive bought whole cars for less than this :-)

    Think ill go for a Fanatec one (which of course works on several platforms too !)

  • SYS64738 #10 1 year ago

    "In the real world, a friend of mine recently bought a real car for 400€."

    Go on, spill the beans about Clarkson's latest Top Gear challenge;)

  • DrStrangelove #11 1 year ago

    500 €. And it doesn't come with a gear lever.

    You gotta be fucking kidding.

    I can see why hardcore sim racers would buy one, they also buy expensive racing seats and according to insidesimracing.tv this is the new benchmark wheel (as you'd expect), at least for GT5 (no drivers out yet for other games, but they will follow). If sim racing is your occupation, I think it's reasonable to spend that much money for a very good wheel, and besides, I spend a lot more money for my occupation (making music) than they do.

    But no gear lever, no six-speed, no sequential shifter, only the paddles? For 500€? That's a fucking slap in the face.

  • MajorMelchet #12 1 year ago

    @SYS64738

    Bah, clarkson already bought a real car for a £1, so he could buy 450 cars for the price of this wheel :D

  • DrStrangelove #13 1 year ago

    All you who keep pointing out that they can buy a car for less than that: look how much the car actually cost you after one year, including fuel, oil, insurance, tax, spare parts, repairs, and tickets for speeding of course. It's like saying, fuck the DS because I can buy an iPhone for 1 quid.
    Edited by DrStrangelove at 05/01/11 @ 13:31

  • menage #14 1 year ago

    If you're a total car GT nutjob maybe,

    I can buy a real car for that price.

  • davisorle #15 1 year ago

    Post deleted at 20:44:35 16-04-2012

  • SteveHolt #16 1 year ago

    @strangelove: fair enough, but same is true with this wheel - you need a ps3, a copy of gt5, a TV... it will cost you much more than 500€ ;)

  • aidey6 #17 1 year ago

    If it came with one of those SSD that was in a recent Digital Foundry article that reduced loading times too.

    MajorMelchet has pointed out some rather serious flaws in this product, but then Sony did release this to us and we then had to get updates just to make it playable online, so I guess it goes hand in hand with the actual videogame. Even if this was half of the rrp. I wonder if it's as good as the G27...

  • RumpyStumpy #18 1 year ago

    Grid has forcefeedback on PS3...

    I would pay £450 if I new it was going to be so much better than my driving force pro but how you find out I'm not sure.

    I can't imagine there will be lots of places to test this out

  • CloisterBlack #19 1 year ago

    WOW.
    Just wow.
    That ad was the definition of CHEESINESS .

    I'd buy it however if I had the money to spare.

  • The-Bodybuilder #20 1 year ago

    Flippin' eck, even the video is self-indulgent and pretentious.
    Truly, it is a reflection of Polyphony and Yamauchi.

  • UkHardcore23 #21 1 year ago

    Im i right in saying the wheel is not even leather but rubber like the cheaper GT wheel? :o

  • RodHull #22 1 year ago

    Wow. Two news articles in as many weeks for a peripheral only the rich and elite will buy. You can tell the Tories are back in power. [/satire]

  • layleeloo #23 1 year ago

    ^ ^ As opposed to what, many reviews of cheap, nasty, shite and useless preripherals when the reds were in power? Nuff said ;)

  • geeza2020 #24 1 year ago

    Silly, no wonder we're in a fucking recession with people buying tat like this.

  • bealios #25 1 year ago

    Off topic, but I've just ordered the G27, having never owned a racing wheel before, just to try it with GT5.

    Do the pedals feel anything close to real driving i.e. resistance on the brake pedal in particular? Also any Force Feedback on the pedals? How sturdy a surface do you need to rest it on - some clever poster suggested using a lowered ironing board in another forum, genius!

  • jonthepymm #26 1 year ago

    I bought one to play FIFA with but it wasn't perfect. Sure, I can move left and right without a problem, and pushing the accelerator down to make the player run is entirely logical. However, in a football game, one occasionally needs to move up and down too. At the moment it is far too easy for my opponent to tackle me. And I can only tackle him/ her when they are in a horizontal line with my player. Scoring is tricky too as the goalkeeper doesn't need to move to save all my shots.

    In conclusion, sturdy though this wheel is, I recommend sticking with a regular PS3 pad for FIFA.

  • sonicyoda #27 1 year ago

    The nutters who purchase these will be sitting on a serious investment though. I can imagine collectors will be paying through the nose for one of these in 5 years time.

  • darc #28 1 year ago

    And I felt frivolous for buying the Move bundle w/ GT5, for the head tracking which doesn't work.

    Well, at least the wheel probably works. It does look great, if money were no object. But at that price I'd expect it to include a purpose-built stand of some kind. I'm tired of inventing new pieces of furniture that only vaguely suit the wheels I own.

    Anyway, I get irate enough when GT5 hangs on me (once every 20 mins or so) as it is. If I were another $500 in the hole, I'd have to break something. (And the nearest thing to hand would be very expensive, unfortunately.)
    Edited by darc at 05/01/11 @ 16:24

  • darc #29 1 year ago

    Jesus, just saw the previous posts re: the clutch pedal (non-) functionality and lack of gear box. I just assumed this was all present and accounted for. The price now seems doubly insane.

  • Negotiator #30 1 year ago

    I think I speak for everyone when I say, thrust it up your arse thrustmaster.

  • metamorphic #31 1 year ago

    Again, old news. Didn't Eurogamer themselves report this exact same thing back in December or something? Taking shoddy tabloid journalism to new heights I see...

  • beastmaster #32 1 year ago

    Are these handbuilt by Fararri?

  • man.the.king #33 1 year ago

    They should put a sign on the box saying "minimum wage-bracket at least $200000 per year".

    That said, IF I had the money, I would buy this in a heartbeat.

  • Ryze #34 1 year ago

    No ta.

    Make it work on the 360 as well as the PC and I'll consider.

  • dutchspeededup #35 1 year ago

    I think it's a bit much expecting people to spend £450 on your toy when you've clearly spent less than that on the promo.

    Sony, the early 90s are calling, they want their shite ad back

  • Caimbeul #36 1 year ago

    sorry to be a poo poo but isnt his news about 1-2 weeks old?

  • FortysixterUK #37 1 year ago

    Pa.
    thet.
    ic.