Anyone that has searched for a wheel and pedal setup for use with their racing/driving games has undoubtedly stumbled on Playseat. Makers of gaming chairs that look and feel like the real deal, we dropped by the Playseat booth at the E3 show to see what the guys were up to for the coming year.
The company offers products that range in price from $250 to over a grand, as standalone seats to use with your existing wheels, pedals and shifters, or bundled with Logitech hardware. Currently, all of the wheel/pedal setups on sale are for the existing systems, though we're certain that both Xbox One and Playstation 4 will have supporting peripherals when they launch.
We were actually most intrigued by Playseat's entry-level Challenge model (seen above), which looks a bit like a racy camp chair with a wheel strapped to the front. The seat is sturdier than it looks, however, supporting gamers up to 270 pounds, and offering easy ingress/egress with a swing-arm design. Perhaps most appealing though, is the very high will-my-wife-let-me-buy-this factor; at $250 for the seat and with the ability to fold up and stuff into a closet or under a sofa, you (we?) won't need to dedicate space just for a racing chair.
Of course, Playseat is working on new branded models to support both Forza Motorsport 5 and Gran Turismo 6, for the ultimate fanboys. Deep-pocketed gamers might also look at the top-end Grand Prix and F1 seats, which offer a racecar-correct deeply reclined driving position and tremendous stability for about $1,200 and up.
The guys were also pretty proud of the futuristic looking prototype seen here. Not a racing chair, this concept model has built-in Logitech speakers as well as vibration from the back, bottom and sides. More of a general-purpose gaming chair, the model would offer an immersive gaming experience with less of a "video-game-y" design aesthetic. We're excited to see if it gets the go-ahead for production.