On the game’s private forums, the developer cites the need for additional polish, as well as competitive concerns, as the reasons for the change.
“This delay has come about because a couple of other big games have announced they are shipping around the same time as our planned first date,” wrote project director Andy Garton. “We know it might be a little hard to believe but this would have had a very significant impact on our initial sales.”
Related: Project Morpheus puts you behind the wheel in Project CARS racing game
Project CARS (“Community Assisted Racing Simulator”) was developed with a combination of crowdfunding and money from the studio itself, skirting around the need for a traditional publisher agreement. Interested players could purchase Tool Packs that provided access to the development process. Most intriguingly, the studio has promised to share a portion of the profits from the game’s first three years with members for their contributions, bringing crowdfunding closer to a traditional investment model.
Project CARS will come to PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on March 17 in the U.S. and March 20 in Europe, with Wii U and Linux/SteamOS versions to follow later in 2015. The originally-announced PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 editions have been cancelled.
