Project Cars has had its launch pushed back to March 2015 after developer Slightly Mad Studios decided to delay the game. This is according to backers of the crowd funded game, who were informed of the news first on Slighty Mad Studios’ private forum. Project Cars was due for release in just over a month’s time, with a release date of 21st November having been previously announced.
In a post to backers Slighty Mad Studios’ Andy Garton wrote:
“Primarily, this has come about because a couple of other big games have announced they are shipping around the same time as our planned first date. The other factor at play here which I’m sure most if not all of your are aware of is that the game is still lacking the fixes and polish it really deserves. We’ve been working extremely hard on tracking towards the original date, and could indeed have made it, but deep down we knew it wouldn’t have resulted in the ultimate level of quality that we wanted. […]we decided that a release early next year made a lot of sense all round. January is traditionally a very slow month for game sales (people have spent all their spare cash up to and including the holidays). February is affected to a lesser degree so March is an ideal window. We appreciate there may be some disappointment but hope most will see this as overall a positive move for the project.”
Although Slightly Mad Studios are looking to further polish the game, it would seem that the main reason for the delay is to move Project Cars into a quieter launch window where its sales won’t be eaten away by competition from the likes of The Crew, Forza Horizon 2, and DriveClub. It’s an interesting decision for a crowd funded project to take considering they will already have a built-in audience of backers. However, it would have undoubtedly been a challenge for the Bandai Namco published game to compete with its more established rivals in such a busy release period. March 2015 does indeed appear to be a much quieter launch window, albeit coming after an extraordinarily busy February for game releases. The only other major title currently confirmed to be launching in March 2015 is PlayStation 4 and Xbox One RPG Final Fantasy Type-0 HD.
The Wii U version had already been delayed to 2015 meanwhile. Whether this news means that the Wii U version will now launch alongside the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC editions is yet to be established.