Confirmed: Project CARS Has Been Delayed To March 2015

Stefan L 22 Comments

Update: Well, that took all of five minutes before a backer confirmed this news to us and provided us with the upcoming press release.

Project CARS has been delayed on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC until March 17th 2015 in the US and March 20th 2015 in the EU. Two reasons were given for the delay, that of moving away from a “competitive holiday scene dominated by household names” – I’m looking at you, Activision, Ubisoft and Rockstar – as well as giving themselves more time to polish the game and deliver on everything they’re trying to achieve.

As part of the press release, Head of Studio Ian Bell wrote the following:

Our goal has always been to deliver a landmark title that encompasses the wishes and desires of racing fans from all around the world; something with features and content powered by the community that provide a truly unforgettable and pioneering experience. Whilst a tough decision to make, the change in release date allows the game the greatest chance of success and visibility, and the opportunity to polish the game even further to the high standards that both ourselves and our community demand and expect. We’re eager for you all to see what we’ve been working on in just a few months.

The Wii U version was not mentioned, but has previously been pushed back to 2015 already. I wouldn’t expect it to arrive in March, though.

Our original post follows.

For fans of sim racers, Project CARS has long been a game they’ve looked forward to, particularly as the first of its breed on the PS4. It looks like you’ll have to wait a little while longer though, as news of a delay to the game has leaked out from their backer forum. Apparently, the game has been pushed back on all platforms until next year, which should gain it a little breathing room compared to its currently stated release date of November 18th, which is the heart of an incredibly busy looking month of game releases.

Open only to those that backed the project during its crowdfunding stages, we don’t actually have access to this forum so aren’t able to directly confirm this, but the news has spread to other sites and leaked out via Reddit this early this morning. A thread titled ‘Bad News‘ says for backers to check the WMD forums, before a couple of replies explain that the game has been delayed until March.

While we’ll treat this as a rumour for the time being, we have reached out to Bandai Namco, the game’s distributor, for comment and will update or confirm this when we hear more.

Source: Reddit, NowGamer, and thanks to community member Crazy_Del for the heads up.

Tags:

Related stories from TSA

The Project CARS franchise has been cancelled by EA
Project CARS games are being delisted from sale
Project Cars 2 Confirmed For Late 2017 Release
February’s Games With Gold Inlcude Project CARS And Monkey Island

22 Comments

  1. Logitech steering wheel support

    • Nope, I doubt it. That’s completely out of SMS’ hands.

      • Except does the Immersion FFB licensing deal expire in 2015 sometime? That would make it cheaper (read free) for logitech to provide drivers to devs to include in their PS4 games.

        As I understand the currents limitation is two fold:

        A) For full PS4 support (XMB, share button etc) the device needs a security chip that handshakes with the PS4 on a regular basis.

        This however doesn’t stop option B:

        B) A dev can include USB and specific driver support for a wheel entirely within their game which allows to wheel to function entirely correctly once the game is launched. This is currently seen in practice with the Thristmaster T500RS which lacks the security chip but works flawlessly in DriveClub.

        The issue is that logitech are citing A as the limiting factor and blaming Sony, when in fact it is Logitech who don’t want to pay the licensing fees for the FFB tech needed to create PS4 drivers and provide them to devs.

      • I’m not sure about the specifics of wheel drivers and licensing or whatever, but holding the game back so that it has a much better chance of making money rather than being crushed by the combined weight of Far Cry 4 and GTAV on the same day, as well as COD:AW and Dragon Age and Assassin’s Creed Unity within the same month is going to be a much, much, much bigger part of this decision than supporting one particular former wheel manufacturer.

        You can patch in wheel support, you can’t patch in better first week sales and sustainable profits.

      • That’s true, but you can’t have helped but notice how many comment boxes on DriveClub are filled with “If only my Logitech wheel worked, no buy”.

        If PCars was the first PS4 game to support Logitech wheels it would absolutely help their sales.

        I kinda think it won’t though, if memory serves me correctly the licensing thing was end of 2015.

  2. Shame, but releasing in a clearer time of year makes a lot of sense, and we’ll probably be more than ready for another racing game after Forza Horizon 2, Driveclub and The Crew this Christmas!

    • Yeah, from an entirely selfish perspective, I actually prefer this. With all the games coming before Christmas, I’m gonna be busy enough. If it gives them time to avoid a DriveClub style launch debacle, all the better.

  3. I guess/hope they saw the shitstorm that hit DriveClub & prefer having optimal functioning servers at launch?

  4. Good news. Less competition when it releases and what should be a more polished experience. Good stuff.

  5. Was gutted but at least I have Drive Club which will keep me busy and then there’s The Crew, so it’s good to have racing games to be spaced out. Still I was excited about Project Cars

    • Yeah, good to have the racing games spaced out so we have something to look forward to until April/May when F1 2015 comes out.

  6. Cuts the november gaming bill a little :)

  7. Gutted, this was my christmas holiday game. The Crew just doesn’t look that great. Plus right through february is crazy busy with AAA titles and Snake is showing his face about then to, maybe, i hope

  8. Well at this rate I’m going to chop my ps4 in and get an xboxone. Drive club is a bit underwhelming with all the server problems, not to mention all the PSN outages. At least I know what I will be getting with forza 5 and horizon 2 and the only reason. I stumped for PS4 was my fanatec supposedly working with it which I have now sold.

    • Driveclub is amazing. Server problems for me are now a now ancient history. Been fine since 1.03 patch.

      I guess your favorite drink is storm in a teacup?

  9. Good thing really, after what happened to DriveClub’s launch. This delay may pull DriveClub’s woes for good. Plus on top of that, Project Cars will be avoiding the competition from the glut of yuletide releases.

    Talking of Drive Club, I bit the bullet and am actually enjoying the game despite the online issues, in the meantime, the game can be played and totally completed in single mode offline.

    I’m doing online aspects whenever i can connect to do a CLUB, the connections have definitely improved with the latest patch [v1.04].

    I have faith in Evolution that it will be fixed sooner than later, it’s just unfortunate to have encountered the issues after launch.

    The game reminds me of PGR with dashes of the first Need for Speed! :D

  10. It’s actually good news for me, going into hospital tomorrow for op on leg so wouldn’t have been able to play it with a wheel and pedals for quite a while. Will be fit(ish) and raring to go by then.

    • Good news for me also but for other reasons. Too many games to play in November all ready.

Comments are now closed for this post.