Ashes Cricket 2013 has been pushed back to a November release as it simply ‘wasn’t good enough,’ 505 Games has announced.
The sports title was originally scheduled to ship alongside the on-going U.K. Ashes series, though it will now hit stores in November – coinciding with the start of the return series in Australia.
Said Tim Woodley, senior vice-president of global brand and marketing for 505 Games: “The matter is, we took a long hard look at the game as it stands and decided it simply wasn’t good enough in its current state. It was simply not worthy of the Ashes name.”
"Unforeseen issues which developer Trickstar faced in latter stages of development have meant that they have been unable to do the requisite amount of polishing and fine-tuning which any game needs. We owe it to ourselves, to our licensors, the ECB and Cricket Australia, but most of all to the dedicated cricket fans and gamers to put our best foot forward.
"It is small compensation that we have the benefit of a second Ashes series in this unique cricketing year which affords us further time to work on the game and get it right for the return leg. We are confident that the time between now and the second Ashes series will be enough to add the final polish we believe the game needs."
While the delay will no doubt come as a disappointment to Cricket aficionados, if the game requires a bit of extra spit and polish ensure the finished product is as good as possible, then that can only be a good thing.
Ashes Cricket 2013 is due out on PlayStation 3, PC and Xbox 360.
Cricket games have had a rough time of it in the past few years, with many of them failing to live up to expectations. Anyone remember the Brian Lara games? Share your comments below.