Project CARS’ Wii U-skæbne yderst usikker

Skrevet af KJ85 - 28-05-2015 12:34

Undertegnede har med vilje ventet lidt med at rapportere om denne lidt kedelige nyhed, da der med garanti ville ske en udvikling i sagen her i løbet af ugen. Sagen er den, at Wii U-versionen af Project CARS fra Slightly Mad Studios og Bandai Namco nu er i overhængende fare for ikke at blive realiseret, og det selvom man ved flere lejligheder har forsikret om det modsatte.

Balladen startede i søndags, hvor en bruger på det officielle Project CARS-forum spurgte ind til Wii U-versionen af spillet, og blev mødt med et svar fra chefen for SMS, Ian Bell, om, at man spændt holdte vejret til E3. Nu får vi endelig en udgivelsesdato tænkte brugeren, men nej, sådan skulle det ikke tolkes, for det opfølgende svar lød:

OK I'll come clean. At the moment we're running at about 23FPS (720p) on the WiiU.

We're awaiting/hoping for more of a hardware announcement at E3...

…Honestly, unless we really cut the looks back I think we're looking to Nintendo's next console.

...I suppose if they don't announce something at E3 or soon after we will have a go at it.

Det skabte naturligvis en del røre, og Ian Bell uddybede situationen.

We could reach a fairly solid 30FPS but it might take a hell of a lot of work. On the other hand, about halfway through us finishing, Nintendo might announce a new console (I have zero knowledge on this BTW but I've heard 'rumours'). Our work might just be the best thing that ever hit that new console in the driving sim genre.

So we're playing a waiting game at the moment and yes, economics do come in to it.

Herpå fulgte en masse mudderkast frem og tilbage, da mange Nintendo-fans tilmeldte sig forummet for at udtrykke deres frustrationer. Mange mente, at SMS var tvunget til at udgive spillet på Wii U, da platformen havde været en del af et crowdfunding-projekt, men sådan er situationen ikke ifølge Ian Bell.

We started the project as a Free to Play PC racing game. That's where more than 95% of the funding was raised. It later (by the choice of the backers) changed to a standard console release on last gen.

This then changed (by decision of the backers) to a standard console release on next gen systems.

We don't want to put out anything sub-par to Nintendo fans.

We're already profitable and all backers will be getting more than they put in. I think you'd struggle to sue on the basis of making a profit on your investment while SMS consider pressing ahead with WiiU or going to the next Nintendo machine.

Så langt, så godt, men hvad er årsagen så til problemerne. Det forklarede Ian Bell senere i en anden post.

To move above 23 or so FPS we would need to cut the graphics back substantially, remove weather and dynamic time of day and use an earlier tyre model (not Seta). This is a simple hardware reality we can not avoid. The new tyre model uses two full cores of both PS4 and One. The Wii U has two full cores in total.

Regardless, we still haven't given up on the WiiU version, we are though looking to see if it makes more sense to move it to new Nintendo hardware, just as we did with Xbox and Playstation, to get the framerates up.

I det store hele lader udtaleleserne til at have skabt en del turbolens på nettet, og det kulminerede formentlig i går, da NintendoLife eksklusivt publicerede endnu en kommentar fra Ian Bell:

Project CARS/Weapons of Mass Development opened funding initially as a Free to Play PC only Racing game. This is when the bulk of the funding arrived. Funding was closed late 2013.

By vote of the members, it changed to a boxed product PC/Xbox 360/PS3 and 'maybe Wii U' game. It was always 'maybe' as we had no knowledge of the system.

It was again changed, by vote of the members, to a PC/Xbox One/PS4 next gen game with still 'maybe Wii U' and Steam OS. The funding, as I said above, was closed long before this.

We still haven't given up on Wii U 100% but if we can't make it work we will move to the next Nintendo machine.

Meget af udtalelsen har, som I kan se det, været dækket ind i tidligere kommentarer på forrummet, men at, Wii U-versionen altid har været ”et måske”, der var nyt, og slet ikke i tråd med de tidligere udtalelser fra SMS og det faktum, at Wii U-logoet har været inkluderet i langt de fleste trailere for spillet. Blandt andet har en vis Andy Tudor tidligere udtalt følgende:

So when we say the Wii U version is delayed in 2015 because we need a little more time, that's all it is. We just want to make sure it's of the same standard of all the other games. To do that, we just need a little more time. I've seen the Wii U version, I've seen it quite regularly. It's got dynamic time of day, weather - it looks phenomenal. And the actual console itself is quite good.

Hvad siger I til situationen her på N-club? Bliver I skuffet, hvis Project CARS ikke udgives til Wii U, eller har I mistet interessen på nuværende tidspunkt? Og hvad med Ian Bell og Slightly Mad Studios – har de håndteret situationen professionelt, synes I?

1ups givet

Kommentarer:

#1 - Scrapper

Level: 32 (Pebblit)

28-05-2015 12:44

Tja, jeg har vist aldrig rigtig fundet det særlig interessant. Jeg har jo Mario Kart 8 ;P Jeg håber da de arbejder videre med det under alle omstændigheder, for der er da en del mennesker, der er interesserede i spillet som Wii U-release