Back in the day, a game called Steel Battalion was released on the original Xbox. It was your average giant robot game: players piloted walking tanks across a virtual battlefield and destroyed everything in sight. Steel Battalion was a decent enough game on its own, but one thing separated it from everything else on the market: its controller.

The dedicated Steel Battalion controller was an absolute beast with 40 buttons, two control sticks, three foot petals... and a massive price tag. The controller itself was $200 — almost as expensive as the console it ran on.

It's been over a decade since Steel Battalion was released, but its gigantic controller lives on — albeit in a very different sort of game.

Saitek, a third-party peripheral manufacturer, is trying to bring the realism of the ridiculously popular Farming Simulator 15 to an entirely new level: a new, multipiece controller featuring a steering wheel, control stick, 20 buttons and two foot pedals is on its way. Of course, realism comes at a price: buying the full version of the Farming Simulator controller will set you back a whopping $300.

Let's put this in perspective. Currently, Microsoft's Xbox One – an incredibly powerful next-gen piece of gaming hardware – is officially priced at $350. With a bit of searching, it's not all that hard to find a brand-new Xbox One at around $300.

Or, you could buy Farming Simulator 15 and its new controller for the same price.

That's not to say that Farming Simulator 15 or its new controller are bad products — people wouldn't love the series as much as they do if Farming Simulator were a terrible game. And what's more, the controller's definitely well-articulated. That said, most people are probably going to lean toward buying a full-fledged next-gen gaming console over a single controller.

If you're a Farming Simulator fan and you don't want to spend $300 on a controller, Saitek offers a few different options: the full, three-piece controller may cost a few hundred bucks, but opting for just the steering wheel and foot pedals, or the side panel on its own, will only set you back $150. Yes, it's still extremely expensive, but it might be enough for some people to take the dive.

If you're interested in finding out what this Farming Simulator 15 actually is (trust us — the title's pretty straightforward), you can head over to the game's official Steam listing. The controller itself will be available sometime later this year.

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