You know that position. The position your body naturally contorts into when you're playing a close match of Street Fighter 6 or crossing a foggy threshold in Elden Ring. You lean in six to ten inches closer to the screen, your shoulders and elbows tighten, and your pupils become dilated. Your S-foils are locking into attack position: It's the posture your body automatically assumes when you're playing a game, and shit gets real. And it turns out that someone has made a chair specially designed for those moments.
Believe it or not, the Playseat Champ NBA has been around since 2019. The only reason these chairs have popped up on my radar now is that I got an email about these NBA-branded Playseats going on sale. These $199 chairs are decked out in the colors of one of eight NBA teams:
- LA Lakers
- Boston Celtics
- Toronto Raptors
- Milwaukee Bucks
- Los Angeles Clippers
- Golden State Warriors
- Brooklyn Nets
- Chicago Bulls
Best chair for gaming: the top gaming chairs around
Best gaming desk: the ultimate PC podiums
Best PC controller: sit back, relax, and get your game on
The Playseat Champ NBA is a gaming chair designed to support what Playseat calls "defending and full-on attack mode." The chair allows the player to lean forward to the point of what looks like the edge of tipping if you were in a rocking chair—a hardcore gaming rocking chair that you'd likely find in the loft of your definitely-adult friend who plays a lot of Call of Duty.
There are cute little pouch pockets in the front and side for stashing your controllers and remotes when you are done gaming, or if you maybe just want to take a much-deserved power nap from, you know, all that intense gaming and need a place for your phone. I like that the chair looks like it lets one flop right off it in disgust after a loss in a match of Fortnite.
Obviously it's a form factor designed for playing in front of a TV, since the idea of rocking back and forth in a gaming chair looks pretty uncomfortable and impractical for keyboard and mouse players. The lack of armrests isn't ideal for PC gaming either. While Playseat does make a more traditional gaming chair for PC gaming, the (labored sigh) L33T Black doesn't seem as magical as the Active Gaming Seat.
Playseat also makes specialized chairs for at-home racing cockpits. These chairs have all the brackets and plates you need for bolting on racing wheels and pedals. It won't look like Sebastian Vettel's cockpit, but it'll come pretty close.
The Playseat Active Gaming Seat starts at $179 on Amazon for its more standard chairs in either black or red. The basketballed-out Playseat Champ NBA are on sale right now through Playseats' website and are selling for $199. I'm going to track down one of these for further coverage, so expect some kind of review soon, unless I go off my rocker.
