Turtle Beach Unveils VelocityOne Race Steering Wheel To Kick Racing Sims Into High Gear
by
Thiago Trevisan
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Wednesday, January 17, 2024, 10:23 AM EDT
Sim racing has gained a tremendous amount of popularity during the last several years, with retailers such as MicroCenter even having in-store displays of complete racing setups. Gear is often available from smaller, niche companies that cater to the demanding enthusiasts, with pricey components as a given.
Turtle Beach, widely known for various accessories such as headsets, is bringing the VelocityOne Race out to consumers. Compatible with both Xbox and PC, this steering wheel and pedal set has an MSRP of $649. While there are cheaper entry-level components on the market, there are also steering wheels that easily cost three times this much alone.
A typical sim racing setup, using the competitor's Fanatec gear
The key item that sim racers want in such a setup is the realism of the force feedback of the steering wheel, and accurate pedals. The VelocityOne Race is a direct-drive system, using Turtle Beach's K:Drive motor. You'll want a sturdy cockpit, often made out of aluminum, to be able to handle the higher forces that such steering wheels provide.
The pedals are also innovative, using Turtle Beach's Dynamic Brake Tek load-cells to give as much realism to the feel as possible. A Race Management display system allows users to monitor the very fine nuance of their settings and view car telemetry data.
The steering wheel itself features Mag-Shift paddles, and also incorporates the desired Hall Effect sensors on its two additional paddles. A healthy selection of on-wheel physical buttons also make navigating game menus and in-race modifications convenient. Assisted by a box to the right which contains further realistic buttons such as engine start and various switches.
Racing sim titles such as iRacing have a breadth of customization options that can be configured using these physical buttons, which aid in realism but also in quick changes associated with sim racing.
With a $649 MSRP, this driving simulation set from Turtle Beach isn't cheap, but it does appear to provide a solid overall value with all of the included component that are traditionally purchased separately as you get to the higher end of the market.
