Have Your Say - Do You, Or Will You, Race Sims on Consoles?

I recycled my SIM gear into a Xbox Series X setup, It didn't hold my attention. Everything that could be played was either not very good, or not very good and also available in a good way on a far superior platform just a couple of meters away. (I have my PC sim rig in my lounge...)

The guys at work have a weekly Forza meet up, and well, I tried, But it was so lackluster I sold my spare gear and haven't fired up the xbox for months.

I definitely choose PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X over the Switch and Mobile/Tablet when it comes to Sim Racing and Simcade.

For those who don't understand why Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport series are both chosen to remain as Simcade by their respective developer? because in order to get the controller pad and racing wheel optimized together for the home console marketing but what if these two were true Sim Racing, then the controller pad's optimization will be a total disaster.

Edit: I reckon Sim Racing is more official for PC and I reckon Simcade is more for PlayStation and Xbox consoles in my personal opinion but don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Nintendo and Mobile/Tablet gaming though.

Twenty five years of PC racing, and I have never owned a console. It's not likely to change.

Let’s see once ACC comes out on PS5 shortly, so far consoles didn’t do sim stuff very well,

PC is for sims, when you really want to take your time for the drive, and you can have the "console" kind casual fun with it also. Plus all the hardware, modding etc. Consoles are, like they meant to be, just put it on and have a go for the sake of fun (which by the way isn't true anymore, almost harder to get start than with pc these days) So no thanks.

Not for the foreseeable future, but I have raced on Xbox one for quite a while until I made the switch to PC. Depends on the software available, but I think consoles are a great option to go sim racing for a fraction of the price of a decent PC, so definitely something to consider if you are on a budget.

At one point in my life I bought both an xbox360 and ps3 just to drive forza 4 and gran turismo 5. I also had a console compatible wheel and pedals which really lowered the cost to get in. That being said I am online racer first. And I had a ton of good fair races in gran turismo 5. Despite its simcade physics the racing was amazing at times. Really fair and still remember quite of few of the races and race events. Gt5 was also the first game to have accurate nordscleife so I did a lot of racing there too.

The car tuning was great and it was fun to just mess around inside the game. The career mode was also more than just the bare minimum of quickly slapped toget pack of races with no goals other than what kind of goals you want to roleplay for yourself. Also a console game by design is much better as a game than a sim title.

Also with a big game like gran turismo the huge userbase allows is big numbers online all the time. And tons of variety. GT500 races, k-car races, hothatches, f1 cars, nascar, prototypes, everything with different fun race modes. One mode was also amazing fun where the game had a lottery of sorts and it gave you a car based on your performance. A slower car if you were too quick. You could also set up a server quickly or you could join a server and things would work pretty seamlessly.

So now I am looking at gran turismo 7 launch. I'm tempted. It is usually a fun experience to go through a gran turismo game. But now I'd need to buy a new wheel, buy a ps4 (ps5 = nope) and then buy the game and pay for online access too. A bit too steep for just one game. Considering I have fanatec csl dd and their pedals I'd still need to buy a new wheel to play it. I could get the csl dd ps4 variant but it is not even sold separately, so read: €$£. I looked into it, can't justify it. It would be preorder just for the wheel for march at earliest anyways. Controller is pure no-go zone for me.

If I had ps4 compatible wheel I'd definitely get ps4 and gt7. A good racing game can be a good racing game even if it has simplistic physics and is tuned for more casual play. In the end I want good racing online in variety of content. On top of that I'd want new experiences, new tracks and cars and car classes, new game modes. Something that works super easily and quickly. That being said even the pc simracing scene looks very different compared to late 2010 when gt5 came out. Back then all you had was iracing and then rf1 and live for speed. Competition wasn't exactly stiff and it was easier to justify the cost to get into gran turismo 5. Now you have ac, acc, raceroom, rf2, ams2, iracing and lots of older titles. Lots of ranked races and more quality online events. Even the kind of driving experiences and content that was available only in gt5 back then is available on ac for example. So I'd definitely race on consoles if something interesting was available on consoles but there is a big cost to get into it and simracing on pc is doing really well so the temptation is less than it used to be.

I don't see any reasons why I'd even contemplate a console when I have a PC. I was raised from a tiny nip playing on PC. My first PC was a BBC micro, my first console was a SNES, then I remember getting an Amiga CD 32 and never owning another console. Lost all interest in them.

Hlspwn said:

Both Sony and Microsoft have far more money than any of the smaller hard core sim studios, and if they continually progress down the more simulation side with the option of driver aids to cater for the casual crowd, as I predicted a long time ago I could see these two becoming the dominant titles in the future with cross play.

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The problem is big studios aren't trying to make the best sim, they are chasing profit and will pander to the lowest common denominator to sell the most copies of the game. It's true they could wipe out smaller developers if they wanted to and make the greatest sim ever made given their budgets, but that's not what they are trying to do. They are trying to make something that appeals to everybody and simulation doesn't appeal to the vast majority of people playing for fun. They want to be entertained, made feel good and have lots of excitement.
I expect nothing from major developers. They just aren't making the product I'm looking for and never will.

I have a 2019ish mid-range PC with 1660ti and i5 9400f and I recently got an Xbox Series X console, mostly for Forza games but also for other future games that would be too heavy for my PC. I went for the Xbox and not PS5 mostly because I already had quite a few games from the time I had Xbox One S.

Now I'm considering getting ACC on Xbox simply for stable 60fps framerate as on my PC with 30 cars I can get some FPS drops on high preset. Especially on Nurburgring and Spa.

I think where consoles are good is the simplicity of use. On PC there are lots of things to think about when playing games that you simply don't need to care about on console. However PC is a lot more versatile and if you have good PC you can push the games further. The choice depends on what you're looking for. I don't think there is one simple answer.

For sim racing though the PC is still the better choice because many titles are only available there. RaceRoom, iRacing, rFactor 2, Automobilista 2, modded Assetto Corsa, Euro and American Truck Simulators are currently PC only.

For statistics sake: nope.

Dont own a console. Last one i owned was Atari 2600. I did however play GT2 (i think?) on PS2 (i think) and i had a lot of fun earning cash and building/tuning/buying cars to race and move up in the world.

Are you currently sim racing on console, or do you plan to in the near future?

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Nope and i don't plan to do it... would love to try GT7, but i don't see me buying a PS5 for this one title only...
Sony should launch GT7 for PC with Crossplay, but that won't happen i guess.
Forza is too much arcade and boring for me... everything else i available on PC.

Tr0nic said:

Nope and i don't plan to do it... would love to try GT7, but i don't see me buying a PS5 for this one title only...
Sony should launch GT7 for PC with Crossplay, but that won't happen i guess.
Forza is too much arcade and boring for me... everything else i available on PC.

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I hope Forza Motorsport Reboot's driving model is going to match with either GT Sport or GT7.

Depends on whether you'll find friends to play with. So probably no.

Consoles are not made for simulation, they are made for gameplay: kids with joypads shouting their mom: im driving a Ferrari.
If simulation on consoles exist than Trackmania on PC is also pure simulation:

Boby Kim said:

Consoles are not made for simulation, they are made for gameplay: kids with joypads shouting their mom: im driving a Ferrari.

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That's complete nonsense sorry.

Atanas Damyanov said:

No trilple, no Vr support, no mods, no external apps, no bass shakers support, poor wheel support. Consoles still not an option.

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Now I remember why I upgraded my PS4 to a PC many moons ago, that is a large important list you can't ignore for me to go back to consoles.

I’ll probably give GT7 a go on PS5 but my DD1 isn’t Playstation compatible so it’s either controller or getting my T300RS out of the attic.

If they didn’t lock down the wheel compatibility I’d give it more of a go but I’m guessing it will be a short lived experiment followed by the occasional session every few weeks or so until I forget about it completely.

Wreckoning said:

I’ll probably give GT7 a go on PS5 but my DD1 isn’t Playstation compatible so it’s either controller or getting my T300RS out of the attic.

If they didn’t lock down the wheel compatibility I’d give it more of a go but I’m guessing it will be a short lived experiment followed by the occasional session every few weeks or so until I forget about it completely.

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You can use the DriveHub to connect the Fanatec DD1 to your PS5.

PC Master Race for sure, but there's nothing wrong with proper sims coming to console. Wider user base so more money for developers,

GTxForza said:

You can use the DriveHub to connect the Fanatec DD1 to your PS5.

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I remember looking at them years ago to get my T300RS working on my Xbox, had forgot all about that until you mentioned it.

Will have to see what the game is like before I consider getting any extra kit, thanks for the pointer though.