True, but sensitivity is only half the story - the direct feedback of a wheel cannot be overstated

But the wheels only have one degree of freedom...

Joysticks in remote controllers for toy helicopters are usually forced into one direction, you can just restrict one of the two dimensions

It's not just about precision, it's about feedback. Being directly connected with the steering linkage gives valuable feedback about the road and the front wheels - just because handicapped people have an alternative that they may use out of necessity does not mean it's a better solution.

In a fully autonomous car, sure perhaps a simple manual system as a backup makes sense but we aren't there yet. You are talking absolute nonsense, and I can only assume you haven't ever driven a vehicle.

But in a racing game the wheels can also twist from hard lock left to hard lock right in a millisecond, not sure that's possible or desired in real life

Huh? People that use steering wheel and peddles for racing games have a serious advantage, it's far more accurate, I have no idea what makes you think it's too slow or what that's even supposed to mean.

Most people use a controller for racing games because there's no setup or space requirements and it's what they're used to. Plus a basic decent steering wheel setup is about three to four times the cost of a standard Xbox or PlayStation controller.

People who play racing games seriously wouldn’t use a wheel and pedals. It’s just too slow.

That is not true at all, unless the racing game is NFS or something. The people seriously playing racing sims all use wheels and pedals.

Clearly, you don't frequent simracing communities.

Something like a playstation controller would be easy to learn for most people.

I mean, you can steer a submarine with it, am I right?

thats what she said