Have a look at these if you haven't already seen them.
It certainly looks potentially way better than a standard gamepad for car, truck, etc, racing games. That said, it's often claimed by many whom play such games that due to poor wheel support, or just bad control coding in general, a decent gamepad is often better than a wheel. Adding things like paddle shifters certainly steps it up a notch though.
I DO play some racing games and would love to try it, but my main concerns are...
1. Compatibility
Lots of console gamers are only familiar with traditional gamepads, and reluctant to like or even try alternatives. When they wine in masses of others kicking their butts with other devices, they often raise a stink big enough to make devs, Sony, and MS cave and make it hard for them in some way to get access. This is why a lot of alternative control devices fail. There's only 6 PC games shown so far.
2. Durability
All those moving parts can look slick at first, but it also can make it more vulnerable to dust, dirt, and wear. In the process that could also effect calibration and steering accuracy. I suggest storing it in a bag to keep dust to a minimum.
3. Shooter aiming
They say it has 3 modes, including a shooter mode, but didn't say exactly how it helps for "rapid targeting". In fact nothing at all was said how it helps for shooting. I can only assume the pivoting parallelogram is used for aiming in that mode.
4. Battery life
On an Xbox One controller you can get up to 30 hrs on a rechargeable setup, and at least 10-15 hours on regular batteries. These guys only promise a measly 3 hours.
[Update]
Upon further searching, I found this on the Kickstarter page FAQ.
"MSAC is the ability to break out one axis from the normally dual-axis Analog stick. Never before has a gaming controller separated the x (left/right) and y (up/down) axes. This allows for unpolluted target tracking in FPS and Battle Royale games."
So at least they're attempting to explain why it's better for shooters. Since the thing steers via the pivoting parallelogram and has two toggles, I assume the axis separation is possible by using one toggle for x and the other for y.
I'm not sure I buy that this would make shooter aiming any easier. My main contention regarding aiming with toggles has always been that they are analog, and therefore very limited in how fast they track compared to a digital mouse.
It's a bit spendy at $99 compared to $60 for a gamepad, but it might be worth it just for race games. The latest ProjectCARS and Need for Speed games just aren't as keyboard friendly as they used to be.
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