D-BOX GPL200 Racing Seat – Motion Sickness Almost Guaranteed

If you’re after that extra level of realism in your driving games, then look no further than the D-BOX GPL200 racing seat.

The D-BOX GPL200 consists of a metal frame that supports a steering wheel and pedals (or flight yoke for aerial sim fans), with an adjustable bucket racing seat attached and resting on 3 hydraulic actuators. It is these three actuators that provide the motion to the racing seat and they are controlled by D-BOX’s own software to translate movements in the game world into leaning and vibration of the real-life chair.

Hit the accelerator and the seat pushes you in the back, change gears and you can feel the subtle difference in acceleration. Take a corner too fast and you can feel the chair pushing you to the side. It’s great stuff, and really adds to the feeling of being in the game. Now you really can feel the car clipping the apex and bouncing over the rumblestrips

On top of that you also get full surround sound through a set of 7.1 speakers attached to the chair and steering wheel mount, so you’re perfactly positioned for that full audio overload!

The steering wheel is a Logitech unit with force-feedback, and the whole system plugs into your PC via USB leads.

Software support is sadly limited, as currently the game only works with a few games including rFactor (the excellent open-source racing game) and Flight Simulator X.

An even bigger downside – no, make that huge – is the price. You can have a GPL200 setup in your house for as little as $16,425, or around £8,000 for us Brits. Yes, for the price of a brand new, real-life supermini you can have a car seat attached to your computer. Somehow that seems a little bit crazy, but if money was no object how cool would it be to have one?

To add to the cost but enhance the realism it is recommended that you use 3 large widescreen monitors, to give you that extra bit of peripheral vision. Mind you, if you can afford £8k on the seat then forking out on a couple of extra monitors probably won’t break the bank.

Still interested? Give D-BOX a call.

Haven’t won the lottery? Have a look at Amazon and see what gaming chairs they’ve got for a fraction of the price.