Project CARS Wii U Version Has Been Cancelled

Slightly Mad Studios has confirmed the cancellation of Project CARS on the Wii U after numerous delays affecting the development schedule. This isn’t a surprising revelation given the graphical fidelity and horsepower required to run the game at a decent resolution. The Wii U is severely underpowered by today’s standards which resulted in a lack of third party support. We should give credit to Slightly Mad Studios though for attempting to release the game whilst most AAA publishers disregarded the Wii U immediately after the Xbox One and PS4 launch. The studio’s creative director, Andy Tudor, issued a personal apology and argued the port was no longer a viable possibility:

“Despite much perseverance on the Wii U version of Project Cars, we will no longer be actively pursuing development on it as the quality does not meet our own high standards nor our intended vision for the title on this platform,”

“We eagerly look forward to any announcement of further hardware from Nintendo but right now Project Cars is simply too much for Wii U despite our very best efforts.”

“Apologies to our Nintendo fans out there that have been waiting for further news on this but we have no desire to release a product that isn’t at the very least comparable with our highest-rated versions on other platforms.”

“We optimistically look forward therefore to what the future may hold.”

While expected, it is a very disappointing move and the studio might release Project CARS or Project CARS 2 on a future Nintendo system. However, many publishers have shared similar intentions which rarely come to fruition. Why? Nintendo doesn’t focus a console’s life cycle based on compute power. The Wii U’s successor, codename NX, already has rumours circulating about its lack of graphical prowess. For example, a reliable source close to Nintendo hinted that the NX would be less powerful than the PlayStation 4. Additionally, there is no chance whatsoever of Project CARS suddenly appearing on the NX anytime soon. There have been no reports of development kits which suggests the NX’s core line-up might be some time off. Many users suspect the console will arrive in 2016, but I feel 2017 makes a lot more sense.

The head of Slightly Mad Studios is a rather colourful character and hasn’t broken the news in a PR-friendly manner. On the official site’s forum, he said,

“Yup, and if you need to pass this on, we really dislike Nintendo users.”

It’s difficult to deduce if this remark was made in an ironic fashion, but it looks aggressive, and could be taken on face value. Furthermore, Nintendo fans are a passionate bunch and rightfully adore the company’s history.  This attitude is very bizarre as the Wii U gamepad could have been used to perhaps show a circuit layout or contain touch controls to make pit requests. I really hope Nintendo targets widespread 3rd party support and don’t rely solely on their own IPs.

Thank you GameSpot for providing us with this information.