One of the most exciting racing wheels of 2018 has to be the Fanatec Podium Series Direct Drive wheels. The first Direct Drive wheel to come from Fanatec, the Podium Series had its official full announcement this month, and is now available to pre-order! While the DD2 was clearly the star of the show, with top of the line specs on it, it seemed like the DD1 may be the better value, featuring almost all of the same features, with just slightly reduced torque and no carbon-fiber finish.
The problem was, while we had the $1,499/€1,499 price for the DD2, we didn’t have the price of the DD1, with Fanatec instead going for a much maligned “Auction” system for the lower tier Direct Drive wheel. Now, it looks like Fanatec has decided to change their marketing strategy for their DD1 wheel, and it is NOW officially able for pre-order! The Fanatec Podium Series DD1 will retail for $999/€999.
Based off of the specs, it is easy to see that the Fanatec DD1 will be gunning for that price bracket currently held by the SimXperience AccuForce Pro wheel. If you purchase Fanatec’s Direct Drive wheel, and a universal hub/rim combo, you are looking at around $1,400, which I would say is a fair price to pay for a Direct Drive wheel with console compatibility!
Now that we have a concrete price for the Podium Series DD1, I think we can also speculate about the upcoming Podium Series Playstation 4 rim as well. We know from Fanatec’s official site that the wheel will utiltize a Playstation 4 compatible version of the DD1 base, with a Formula-style rim. My guess would be that we would see the PS4 version of the Podium Series wheel retail for $1,500. I believe it would be a reasonable guess to see the first Podium Series rim retail for around $500, and then we can see the combo retail for $1,500.
What are your thoughts about this recent news about the Podium Series DD1? Where do you think the PS4 Podium Series base will retail for? Lets us know in the comments!