Project CARS struggling to hit 720p, 30fps on Wii U

When the Wii U version of Project CARS was sidelined, to make way for the newly released PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions, a lot of people raised their eyebrows. It seems that that skepticism wasn't misplaced, as the Wii U version is struggling to reach the wanted performance, according to studio head Ian Bell.

In a number of successive posts on the games official forums, Bell had this to say about the development of the Wii U version:

"I can't say too much but we're awaiting E3 with baited breath. Don't read wrongly into that... OK I'll come clean. At the moment we're running at about 23FPS 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. 720p yes. I suppose if they don't announce something at E3 or soon after we will have a go at it."

"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."

So there is a couple of interesting snippets of information there. Firstly there is underwhelming performance of the Wii U version, which isn't exactly surprising, given the performance gap of the different generations of hardware.

However, Slightly Mad Studios seems to be hoping for an E3 announcement of the new Project NX from Nintendo, but Nintendo has already confirmed, that they won't unveil the NX until sometime in 2016.