Wii U Project Cars Cancelled [Update]

London developer Slightly Mad Studios will no longer be committing resources to a Wii U edition of its acclaimed racing sim Project Cars, according to new comments attributed to an executive at the studio.

[Update: Slightly Mad Studios has confirmed to GameSpot that the Wii U edition of Project Cars has been officially cancelled, claiming that the port did "not meet our high standards".

A representative for the UK studio, creative director Andy Tudor, has apologised to Wii U owners who had high hopes that the racing sim would ship on Nintendo's home console.

"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," Tudor explained.

"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." Update ends.]

A report from NintendoLife suggests that Ian Bell, studio head at Slightly Mad, has pulled support for the Wii U version due to apparent problems optimizing for the console.

It is also claimed that Slightly Mad is hoping to ship the game--or perhaps its newly announced sequel--on Nintendo's next games console, the NX.

"The official line is that we're awaiting an announcement from Nintendo on new hardware," Bell was quoted as saying.

"As of now Project Cars is simply too much for the Wii U."

Bell did not explicitly state that the studio has abandoned work on the Wii U version, but his comments strongly imply this is the case. Publisher Namco Bandai has not commented on the matter. Both parties were unavailable to clarify matter at the time of going to press.

Slightly Mad's apparent confirmation of the project's cancellation comes some two months after Bell suggested that the prospect of the Wii U edition "was always a maybe."

GameSpot's Project Cars review for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 was positive overall. Critic Austin Walker wrote: "Project Cars offers a different fantasy, one that's a little less attractive and a bit harder to enjoy: the fantasy of learning how to do something difficult."

Click through the thumbnails below to see some key Project Cars images:

Gallery