NASCAR 14 not going next gen for the same reason Gran Turismo 6 didn't - Eutechnyx

NASCAR 14 developer Eutechnyx decided against going next-gen when even Sony didn't bring Gran Turismo 6 to PlayStation 4.

Speaking to Sports Illustrated's Extra Mustard, Eutechnyx executive vice president Ed Martin said there aren't yet enough next-gen consoles in the wild to justify the developer's investment.

"The nail in the coffin was when a guy from Sony talked about Gran Turismo, and how their new game was launching on PS3. He said something like, ‘Why would we put Gran Turismo on a console that has zero units in the market when there are 150 million PlayStation 3s out there?'" Martin added.

"Well, it’s a great question. It costs us about $6 million to develop a next-gen version of NASCAR. You have to sell an awful lot of copies in order to meet the development costs, on top of all the licensing. There are about 4-5 million worldwide combined units of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, so it just doesn’t add up for us right now. We own the rights, and we absolutely have plans, but it won’t be later this year."

The spin Sony chose to put on Gran Turismo 6's PS3 release was that it showed the company's ongoing commitment to the console. If the rest of the franchise is anything to go by it had likely been in the works far too long to cancel and rejig for PS4, too.

That said, Polyphony has more than hinted that a PS4 release may happen at a later date. Kazunori Yamauchi said early on that it was possible and that Polyphony had a PS4 version in mind. Later, he said it will "naturally" come to PS4 but not soon, and also ruminated on the possibility of the project eventually becoming Gran Turismo 7, which would release in 2014 in a "best case" scenario.

NASCAR 14 is due on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 on February 18, and will support custom online leagues for the first time in the franchise's history - a much requested feature.

Thanks, Joystiq.