Hyper-realistic racing sim Project CARS launched back in May on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC with a Wii U version supposedly coming in the hazy, indistinct future. Today, developer Slightly Mad Studios has confirmed in an interview with Nintendo Life that the Wii U version has been cancelled.
“The official line is that we’re awaiting an announcement from Nintendo on new hardware.” says Ian Bell, the head of Slightly Mad Studios, but according to him development on the port has been scrapped.
A short time after the story was posted, publisher Bandai Namco officially confirmed the cancellation and Bell’s statement regarding the Wii U’s apparent lack of horsepower.
“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,” reads Bandai Namco’s press release. “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 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.”
Project Cars originally made the money they needed to get started via crowd funding (though not through Kickstarter, it should be noted). Bell has pointed out on several previous occasions that development of a Wii U version was never one of the concrete promises to backers and was only ever considered a “maybe.”
As recently as May, Bell left a post on the Project CARS forums that the Wii U version was stalled due to development problems, stating that the best performance they’d managed to get out of the game on the system was 23fps at 720p.
For more on Project CARS, check out our full review.
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