Thrustmaster Reveals Aggressive Product Reveal Roadmap

I'm still considering buying a new T300 (don't trust in used ones), because I don't have much money for this hobby and conifer the T300 the best wheel in this price range.

Would you guys think, the above mentioned new stuff would lead into dropping prices for the "older" stuff, like a T300?

I expect new products to have impact on price of older products, that's how I upgrade my hardware tbh, when a new product hits the market the older model gets a discount and I grab it. Just an old habit @Reik Major.

That said, I also expect the cost of raw materials and its transportation to impact the price of things as well. I can tell you that the price of furniture ha gone up to 10-15% up due to the costs of wood. Same with fuels (at least here in NL). Plastic being a polymer will certainly go up as well, eventually. So, I think the question is when do you want to buy your next wheel? Because I don't expect Thrustmaster's DD wheel to hit the market before the end of this year, but scarcity of raw materials will.

I have a T300 and it does what I expect from it very well. I don't really need a DD wheel because I do simracing for fun, but since I've had the T300 for some years now I know an upgrade will happen a few years down the road. In the meantime I'm very happy with it and can recommend it, with the T-LCM pedals.

Dzul said:

I expect new products to have impact on price of older products, that's how I upgrade my hardware tbh, when a new product hits the market the older model gets a discount and I grab it. Just an old habit @Reik Major.

That said, I also expect the cost of raw materials and its transportation to impact the price of things as well. I can tell you that the price of furniture ha gone up to 10-15% up due to the costs of wood. Same with fuels (at least here in NL). Plastic being a polymer will certainly go up as well, eventually. So, I think the question is when do you want to buy your next wheel? Because I don't expect Thrustmaster's DD wheel to hit the market before the end of this year, but scarcity of raw materials will.

I have a T300 and it does what I expect from it very well. I don't really need a DD wheel because I do simracing for fun, but since I've had the T300 for some years now I know an upgrade will happen a few years down the road. In the meantime I'm very happy with it and can recommend it, with the T-LCM pedals.

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Same goes here ... got ts-pc racer f488 + t-lcm and love it

eco2006 said:

Looks more like the complete opposite to me.

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The timeline is too short to develop and test a brand new product. If this really was a reaction to the Fanatec wheel, then it's certainly not worth buying the first generation. You'd be a guinea pig and the product would almost certainly be riddled with problems. .

Fanatec has lit a fire under their ass, that's clear. If they had a DD in development or not it's irrelevant, had fanatec not released their cheap DD wheel Thrustmaster would have released theirs at a later point and would had been sold in a price point higher than their ts-pc to not canibalize their own sells but at a lower price than the fanatec DD1 to entice potential fantatec users to buy the Thrustmaster one.

What it is to see is if they can do a wheel cheaper while keeping a similar construction quality as the fanatec. Thrustmaster is in a very bad place right now, Fanatec has the hype, the momentum, the build quality, the better ecosystem, and a price point for the new wheel low enough that it is going to be very hard to beat.

If Thrustmaster try to build another glorified plastic toy with a DD motor, and sell it at the same price point as the ts-pc then they are going to fail miserably. The new DD fanatec wheel changed the game, because it's all metal, tiny, powerfull enough for most of the users, has the hype, and people will have to pick between a plastic base that's not that much cheaper than it's counterpart put together with a much higher quality wheel and compatible with a bigger and higher quality ecosystem.

Who is going to be interested in a DD base that has to be paired with a plastic wheel trough a plastic quick release?, those wheels are going to twist and make all kind of noises under so much torque, and most probably that torsion will lead to some kind of reliability issues.

So maybe Thrustmaster can limit the torque when paired with those wheels, but if the base+wheel have torsion because of the plastic, and the motor torque is reduced to the level of non DD bases then the features that make a DD base enticing dissapear: strong and smooth lagless torque.

The wheel plastic construction and the plastic quick release will twist under torque negating the lagless torque, and the limit in the amount of torque that the plastic wheel can handle will destroy any high torque advantage of that DD base over non DD bases.

So, the conclusion is that they will need to compete in both build construction quality, torque and price point, or just make a wheel at a way lower price point to make it enticing. The only positive thing for Thrustmaster right now is that fanatec is going to die of success, they won't be able to meet the demand and some people will grow frustrated with money burning on their hands, if at that point in time Trustmaster release their DD wheel at a competitive price point with only slightly worse features they can make a comeback.

But Thrustmaster will be forced to lower their price point for their non DD plastic glorified toy bases (aka: their entire current lineup) if they want to keep them relevant. Wich in turn will force logitech hand with their overpriced G25 derivatives if they want to keep selling their 15 year old wheel that they keep changing name and disguising as a new wheel while not lowering the price every year and a half.

It's the perfect storm for the simracers in the search of a wheel base between 250 and 700€ price point.

It would actually be something if SimCube were the ones to drop a new DD wheelbase and price it at €/$ 666.66 ... like the Apple I... #nerdstuff

That's a good move. I won't invest immediately in a DD wheel, my TS PC racer is sifficient. Having 3 rims for the thrusmaster ecosystem, I'd be glad to know that when I go DD, I have already compatible rims.

Note for the FFB joystick : a must have for heli sims.

Fanatec does not have any significant advantage in terms of build quality. My Thrustmaster wheel base hasn't missed a single beat in half a decade of abuse. This glorified plastic toy has a real steering wheel installed on it, and I am willing to bet that it will last for another decade after this. I have owned my Fanatec pedals for almost a year and I have had nothing but major problems. That's not to mention the awful design of the load cell brake pedal. I have owned my Fanatec gear lever for nine months and it has also been acting up for some time now. I was appalled when I saw that they are charging people 170 dollars for the plastic key to unlock the full power of their Fanatec chastity belt. I felt even worse when I saw people defending this decision. It's safe to say that I am not going to touch another Fanatec product after this. There are a hundred better ways for me to spend 650 dollars that won't cause an endless stream of frustration, and then the couple hundred that you need to cough up to purchase one of their steering wheels. This is the real price of the Fanatec wheel base that people seem to overlook. This would not be happening if there existed some actual competition.

TRASGU said:

it's all metal

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No it's not, the end-plates are made of plastic which is why it emits so much EM interference. Haven't you read about the EMI problems Valve Index users are struggling with?

Interested to see what Thrustmaster come up with and the price. I've been nothing but pleased with my TS-XW and the T500 before it so would happily continue to buy in to their ecosystem

I don't really see why so many people are buying in to the Fanatec hype. The price is nothing special once you add on a few "upgrades" and spec a wheel rim in to the equation. And like others my experience with Fanatec has not been great on the reliability front either.

Jayblue said:

Interested to see what Thrustmaster come up with and the price. I've been nothing but pleased with my TS-XW and the T500 before it so would happily continue to buy in to their ecosystem

I don't really see why so many people are buying in to the Fanatec hype. The price is nothing special once you add on a few "upgrades" and spec a wheel rim in to the equation. And like others my experience with Fanatec has not been great on the reliability front either.

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Well the hype is motivated by the fact that DD wheels are considered superior to belt wheels and this DD base costs significantly less than the other DD bases. Before this one was announced I was considering the Simagic M10 base with wheel which was still around 1100+ euros, and that was one of the cheapest DD combos.

Hipp-E said:

ehm .... to feedback what forces ?
modern planes are all hydraulic systems, in some modern fighter planes the stick doesn't even move - there's something similar to loadcell
so flying community is bothered with other question - will it blend ?

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what is a stick feel unit? mmm

If the DD wheel base is smaller or as small but cheaper than the Fan CSL DD I'm in

Still holding fire on a dd purchase until this all settled down. Hopefully whatever happens hits used dd prices and maybe I'll go that route. It will also be my last wheel purchase for a very long time.

Maybe I missed it, but will the new DD wheelbase support the TM current wheels (and eco system) or will it be a fresh start?

There are arguments for both, the existing quick release is a functional, but hardly elegant technical solution, but dropping that system will leave existing owners in the cold. However once you drop the eco system you can add new featured, OTOH there will be no reason for existing owners to look elsewhere for their replacement.

Be damned if you do, be damned if you don’t.

…again, I may have missed the ecosystem / quick release support part.

Ruy Horta said:

Maybe I missed it, but will the new DD wheelbase support the TM current wheels (and eco system) or will it be a fresh start?

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Good point and great question... their current 'release' system is primitively simple. But because it's made of plastic it is also prone to get damaged with "proper" DD levels of force feedback. Yet replacing it will most likely render all existing wheels incompatible. There's indeed a conundrum already. As a customer that has already invested in their ecosystem I would feel "left out in the cold" (to put it kindly) if I couldn't use any of the wheels I already paid for. But I don't see any other way to get their DD wheel to work properly... do you?

Dzul said:

Good point and great question... their current 'release' system is primitively simple. But because it's made of plastic it is also prone to get damaged with "proper" DD levels of force feedback. Yet replacing it will most likely render all existing wheels incompatible. There's indeed a conundrum already. As a customer that has already invested in their ecosystem I would feel "left out in the cold" (to put it kindly) if I couldn't use any of the wheels I already paid for. But I don't see any other way to get their DD wheel to work properly... do you?

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The plastic QR is removable on the TM rims I know of, and people have been converting them to work with OSW direct drive bases for years.

Skinny McLean said:

The plastic QR is removable on the TM rims I know of, and people have been converting them to work with OSW direct drive bases for years.

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That’s not a click and play solution, it requires modification.

Pretty sure the current wheels will be able to handle consumer level DD FFB, so a redesign of the locking mechanism while maintaining compatibility is certainly an option. Just curious about where they are taking this. I somehow ended up with 5 TM wheels…

Ruy Horta said:

That’s not a click and play solution

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That's true - but it's also not a conundrum as the poster I replied to said.

Seems someone already got his hands on the new hybrid t248