Project Cars was delayed until March 2015

Bandai Namco announced that their upcoming racing game, Project Cars, was delayed so that the developer, Slightly Mad Studios can polish it and because of the high competition they have for the holiday season.

There was no shortage of delayed games this autumn. After Batman: Arkham Knight, The Witcher 3, Dying Light or the PC version of GTA V, Project Cars joins the list of games that you will not be able to play this year. This comes after Slightly Mad Studios already delayed the Wii U version to 2015.

Apparently, the developer’s decision to delay Project Cars doesn’t only come because it still needs to be polished. Slightly Mad Studios confirmed, through a press release, that they want to avoid releasing the game now because of the high competition they will have during the holiday season, namely Ubisoft’s “The Crew” and the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of Grand Theft Auto V.

Project Cars was supposed to be released on November 18, 2014, on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. However, due to Bandai and Slightly Mad Studios’ decision to delay it, the new release date of the game is March 20, 2015. The developers tried to explain the reasoning behind the delay through a press release, part of which you can read below:

“Project Cars isn’t ‘just another game for SMS, it’s the start of our very own IP/brand which we believe can live and be successful for a long time. It’s critical the first release is a solid one therefore to lay the foundations for those plans. As such 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.”

All in all, considering all the racing games that came out this autumn (Forza Horizon 2, Driveclub) and the upcoming one, The Crew, this delay makes sense. Though Forza Horizon 2 is an Xbox One exclusive and Driveclub is a PlayStation 4 exclusive, these games were still bound to affect Bandai’s sales. However, in March, after all these games have been released and played, maybe more gamers will shift their attention to Project Cars.