Driving simulators

Something I’ve been idly wondering about on and off for a while is why there aren’t any decent driving simulator/trainers for PCs (or consoles). Surely there must be a market for this sort of thing? If you sold a package with force-feedback driving wheel, pedals and gearstick, together with a fairly up to date and realistic graphics engine (Gran Turismo 3 comes to mind immediately) for maybe £100, wouldn’t you get a fair number of sales?

Granted, it obviously wouldn’t replace the entire driving experience but it’d go a long way in teaching people the basics, and also clutch control, speed and so on. Add on a written driving test trainer and it’d be perfect. I’m a bit ambivalent about using a VR headset – I know that they’re cheaper these days, but I don’t know much about compatibility issues, or lag time and graphics.

The problem is that I can’t think of anyone who’d attempt this. Games publishers might view it as an unknown market, and the developers of simple ‘edutainment’ software simply don’t have the skills to pull something like this off. I wouldn’t imagine hardware being too much of a problem; you could just rebrand or bundle existing force-feedback peripherals.

2 Replies to “Driving simulators”

  1. http://www.3d-driving-school.com

    i think this is correct if not google “3d driving school”

    it lacks in some points but has taught me alot including, hazard perception, indicating, where and where not to turn or do somthing you are not suposed to do. and when you feel ticked off about somthing you can go into free drive and go on a rampage

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