If I ever win the lottery, once I get that check deposited in my bank account, my first call will be to Simcraft, makers of the utterly awesome APEX SC830. The SC830 is designed to be a training simulator for professional race car drivers. The simulator boasts three degrees of freedom, allowing it to roll, pitch and yaw in response to motion within the simulation-- I tested it out, and I could really feel the car pulling around curves. (This was before I spun out and crashed horribly, proving that in real life I should never be allowed near the steering wheel of a race car). It's an amazingly realistic experience, and the company told me the military have also used it to train drivers to handle off-road conditions. A flight simulator version is also in the works.
The SC830 costs about $44,000, but if that's just a little out of your price range, Simcraft do offer a simpler version, the SC320, with two-degrees of freedom (pitch and roll) aimed at the really, really, really hardcore gamer that costs about $20,000 -- what? Still too expensive, cheapskate? Well, the company is now working on developing a version that gamers will be able to purchase for something under 5K, which for me puts it into the realm of lottery scratch cards, rather than waiting for my Megaball numbers to come up...
