Maxis has dropped some new information on the ancillary versions of its upcoming PC title Spore, with details of the Nintendo DS, Wii, and mobile versions leaking in a series of interviews with Newsweek's N'Gai Croal.

Spore Creatures for the Nintendo DS will predictably focus on the creature phase established in the PC edition, with users evolving their customized characters, defeating enemies, and "exploring the galaxy on a quest to find new evolutionary paths and save their home world."

"We even decided to go with a custom look for Spore Creatures so the content is entirely unique to the DS," said Maxis producer Lucy Bradshaw. "Our artistic inspiration came from Japanese flat rod puppets and shadow box art."

In addition to the standard creature-based gameplay, Nintendo DS players... Read more

Ending years of speculation, EA Maxis has announced that its long, long, long-awaited evolution simulator Spore will hit PC, Nintendo DS, and Mac on September 7, 2008. No mention was made of the upcoming Wii edition.

Lead designer Will Wright, the renowned visionary behind the long-running Sims franchise, had previously stated the game was on track for a spring 2008 release, though EA would only confirm that the game would hit "before holidays" in a recent conference call.

"The wait is almost over," said Wright. "We're in our final stages of testing and polish with Spore, and the team at Maxis can't wait to see the cosmos of content created by the community later this year."

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In this week's ShackCast, we talk Electronic Arts news, including Rock Band for the Wii, Will Wright's Spore, and the oft-discussed quandary of parallel Xbox 360/PS3 development.

No More Heroes is reviewed and endorsed ad infinitum, with Remo, Faylor, and Aaron gushing over the Grasshopper Manufacture Wii title. Also: Reader mail, Velociraptor Safari, Maarten Goldstein, and more!

Don't forget to send in your questions and comments about video games, the Shack, or the ShackCast to shackcast@shacknews.com!

Play or download the podcast now, or browse the episodes through iTunes, RSS, or Digg. ... Read more

Despite its ongoing delays, Electronic Arts brass is still confident in Will Wright's ambitious evolution simulator Spore.

Despite a recent analyst projection that Spore will not be released until the coming fall or winter months, EA declined to give a specific release time frame for the title during today's analyst and press financial conference call.

The company did, however, state that the game will be released this year. "We're not announcing dates for any of our titles. We will tell you it's gonna be before the holidays," said EA CEO John Riccitiello in the call, which is ongoing at time of writing. "We're very, very bullish."

Riccitiello believes Spore will be what EA calls a "breakaway title." This comes after the company lamented its lack of internally-developed breakaway titles last year.

"I've personally played the software and it is very impressive," said Riccitiello today.

Janco analyst Mike Hickey has some bad news for those anticipating Will Wright's next ambitious title.

"We now expect [Spore in the second half of 2008], versus management guidance for March/April," said Hickey to Gamasutra. The prediction comes as an explanation of recent disappointing Electronic Arts share performance.

Publisher Electronic Arts had previously expressed a firm release period of spring 2008 for the game, which will allow players to create a lifeform and follow it from the single-cell level to an advanced stage of starship travel.

"We have the game fully playable at this point and it's in final testing," said developer Wright in October.

Potential news of a delay would be announced this Thursday during Electronic Arts' conference call.

Blizzard Entertainment co-founder, president and CEO Mike Morhaime (pictured left) is the latest addition to the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences' Hall of Fame, the academy announced today.

Morhaime marks the eleventh inductee into the Hall of Fame, joining renowned industry figures such as Sid Meier, Will Wright, Shigeru Miyamoto, Richard Garriott, Peter Molyneux, Trip Hawkins, and Yu Suzuki.

"This is a great honor, and I'm proud to receive it," said Morhaime. "The success that Blizzard Entertainment has had over the years would not have been possible without the enthusiasm and support of players around the world, and the passion and dedication of our employees, so I thank all of them for contributing to this achievement."

Though Morhaime has contributed to beloved Blizzard franchises--including Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo--it is the company's work with its ludicrously... Read more

Despite cable TV host and 2008 presidential hopeful Stephen Colbert being refused admission into the South Carolina Democratic primary election, Austin-based publisher Gamecock Media Group has announced its official endorsement of Colbert--and invited the candidate to reestablish his campaign headquarters in Texas after Colbert was turned away from his own home state.

Colbert has officially withdrawn his candidacy following the setback, but Gamecock has refused to acknowledge the withdrawal. "We came to the conclusion that Stephen Colbert has shown strong leadership and best represents the interests of the videogame playing community," said Gamecock CEO Mike Wilson. "Politicians have long demonized videogames for short term gain. This has, of course, been hilarious to watch. But Stephen Colbert will definitely be funnier than anything Hillary Clinton or Mitt Romney can come up with."

Wilson also pointed to Colbert's interview with The Sims creator Will Wright, and defeat of a virtual version of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at Wii Sports as further evidence of Colbert's video game advocacy.

Don't expect to see Colbert respond to today's announcement on... Read more

A Wii edition of Maxis' heralded evolution simulator Spore has been confirmed by designer Will Wright, who is responsible for both Spore and the massively successful Sims series.

"We're doing Spore on the Wii," Wright mentioned offhandedly in a talk with Guardian Unlimited. A Wii version has long been speculated since Wright declared last year that Spore would arrive "on all platforms," though it was never specifically confirmed until now.

Earlier this week, the renowned designer claimed that the PC version of Spore was "roughly" six months away. A Nintendo DS edition is said to be in development, with a PSP iteration rumored as well, though no information has surfaced on either project in some time.

Wright also noted his belief that the Wii is the only true "next generation" console on the market. "The PS3 and the Xbox 360 feel like better versions of... Read more

Spore, Maxis' upcoming PC evolution simulator, is in final testing and should release in "roughly" six months, designer Will Wright revealed in a recent Radio 5 Live interview.

"We have the game fully playable at this point and it's in final testing," said Wright, reports CVG. "We've had to do a lot of testing to make sure that the game is accessible by a wide group of people."

Originally slated for a 2007 release, Spore was delayed until 2008 earlier this year. Publisher Electronic Arts later spoke on the matter, saying that it expected the title to ship in the spring.

"Right now it's sort of squarely targeted of March-April-May of next ... Read more

EA Japan designer Takahiro Murakami confirmed a Nintendo DS remake of Peter Molyneaux's original 1989 god game Populous is on the way in an EA Tokyo Game Show press event Wednesday. Murakami also helmed SimCity DS, the portable remake of Will Wright's classic city builder.

Unlike the original Populous, which featured just one deity, the DS version will include multiple gods with varying powers. The familiar open book layout of the game will be replaced with a newer design, though Murakami said the title would use an aesthetic making it similar to the original Populous. Creator Peter Molyneaux will not be involved.

Four-player multiplayer battles, a tutorial-enhanced story mode, and optional stylus controls round out the package, which has been in development for six months. EA Japan doesn't have a release date yet for the title.

Electronic Arts sends along 12 new screenshots of Will Wright's evolutionary life simulator, detailing the game's progression from tiny cell-sized organisms to tool-wielding civilizations. Spore is currently expected to arrive on PC in spring 2008.

1UP, GameSpot and GameSpy all have Spore previews, going hands-on with the new Will Wright game at the Leipzig Games Convention.

During an earnings call, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello expressed optimism in his company's future, despite a comparative decrease in revenue over its first quarter and a tough slate of upcoming competition.

EA's first-quarter revenue and profits were down 4% and 7% year-over-year, respectively standing at $395 and $229 million. The publisher chalked up the relative decline to its new policy of hosting games with online-enabled features for free, which deffered some $36 million in revenue.

Looking forward, Riccitiello etched a silver lining around strong future titles from publishers like Microsoft's Halo 3 (X360) and Take-Two's Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3, X360), saying: "I think it's a double positive, for us and for the industry. Great software sells hardware.

"We were a little careful of the dates we selected to put our... Read more

Also at 1UP is this SimCity Societies Q&A. EA's Rod Humble talks about contracting out development of the game to Tilted Mill, the lack of involvement by Will Wright and the concerns of SimCity fans among other things.

In an analyst conference call following the release of Electronic Arts' earnings report for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2007, EA executives announced that the release of Will Wright's upcoming evolution simulator Spore has been pushed out of 2007. EA CEO John Riccitiello, who recently returned to the company after co-founding Elevation Partners, indicated that there is a possibility the game will be released at the end of EA's coming fiscal year ending March 31, 2008, but it is more likely it will be pushed into the following quarter.

"We continue to have enormous confidence in Spore as a franchise but have made the call not to include this title in our fiscal year financial plan," said CFO Warren C. Jenson. Responding to analyst queries regarding the current status of the game, Riccitiello added, "I've had the chance to review the title three times ... Read more

Firaxis designer Soren Johnson has left the Hunt Valley, Maryland-based studio founded by Sid Meier to join Will Wright's hand-picked development team in Emeryville, California, giving him two of the most enviable resume entries a game developer could possibly claim. Wright's team is currently working on the ambitious evolution simulator Spore; Johnson's specific role on Spore is unknown. During his more than six years at Firaxis, Johnson was best known as the co-designer of Civilization III and the lead designer of Civilization IV. For his increasingly key role in the acclaimed Civilization series of turn-based nation-building games, Johnson was frequently described as the heir apparent to Civilization creator and overseer Meier.

Johnson's employment by EA serves as something of a homecoming for the programmer. During his time as a student at Stanford University, Johnson also served as an intern at EA's Redwood Shores offices. While there, he contributed to the boxing games Knockout Kings 2000 and Knockout Kings 2001.

News of Johnson's departure and destination was broken by Civilization fansite Apolyton. Representatives from Firaxis parent Take-Two Interactive declined to comment on the news, but the reports were later confirmed by Electronic Arts. Johnson has not made any mention of the move on his personal site.

On a yearly basis, important films are added to the National Film Registry in the Library of Congress, ensuring that landmark motion pictures are preserved in their original forms for generations to come. During last week's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Stanford University History of Science and Technology Collections curator Henry Lowood spoke on his efforts to cultivate a similar effort for video games. Lowood has been archiving video games since 1998, and during GDC he along with a panel including noted designers Steve Meretzky and Warren Spector began to establish a list of games crucial to the evolution of the medium.

The ten games selected by the panel as the most important games of all time--sure to be a list of great contention--are the pioneering MIT-originated 1961 space combat game Spacewar!, Doug Neubauer's 1979 space sim Star Raiders (Atari 8-bit), Infocom's 1980 text adventure Zork (PC), Alexey Pajitnov's 1985 puzzle game Tetris, Will Wright's 1989 urban sandbox SimCity (PC), Nintendo's 1990 platformer Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES), Microprose's appropriately named 1991 history simulator Sid Meier's Civilization (PC), id Software's influential 1993 shooter Doom (PC), Blizzard's WarCraft (PC) RTS franchise beginning in 1994, and Sensible Software's classic 1994 sports game Sensible World of Soccer (AMI).

SimCity is "one of the most important art works of the 20th century," said researcher Matteo Bittanti. "It completely reinvented the whole notion of games. And then it transcended the game world to become a cultural phenomenon."

Despite the information-based nature of video games, the history of the form has been poorly maintained, due to factors such as the plethora of formats that have come and gone over the years, the rapid obsolescence of games due to continued technological advancement, as well as the disposable, hit-driven business model that leads most publishers to largely ignore their older propertites. Many older games, particularly those requiring unique hardware, exist only in very limited numbers, and some no longer at all.

On game preservation, Spector warned, "We have to be really careful here because the technology is just going to make this harder for us. The game canon is a way of saying, this is the stuff we have to protect first."

"Creating this list is an assertion that digital games have a cultural significance and a historical significance," said Lowood. "Maybe we should do something about preserving them."

Speaking to Popular Science in a typically engaging interview, designer Will Wright elaborated on his upcoming game Spore, reiterating some previously known details and touching on some that have been less discussed. On the last page of the interview, the discussion diverges a bit, and Wright shares some of his thoughts on broader topics related to the game industry. The concept of "serious games"--that is, games with an explicit level of social awareness or games whose primary function is to inform or educate, with entertainment a secondary goal--has been one that is being discussed more and more. Each year, the Serious Games Summit is held in Washington D.C., and a smaller conference is held during San Francisco's annual Game Developers Conference. It seems Wright himself might have aspirations along those lines as well.

"I'm very interested in more relevant gaming," Wright said. " Getting people more connected to the real world through gaming. Because I think we all live in our own little bubbles, we have our own little lives and there's this whole world out there of things happening that we're kind of dimly aware of. We might pick up the paper or watch the news." He went on to suggest that games could be not only valid as tools to inform, but also as tools to effect change. "It's a complex world. A lot of very strange twisted dynamics, interesting things, very important things that are going to shape the future that our children live in," he went on. "And that if you could just get everybody to be a little bit more aware of the world around them, and how it works, and have that feedback in to the course the world is taking, gaming could be an incredibly powerful mechanism for steering the system."

Wright pointed to areas such as politics, economics, climate, and environmentalism--all things that have factored into some of his games over the past--as topics that could potentially be well communicated to players through games. He also seemed to indicate he may already have some kind of idea related to relevant gaming ("There's one idea, but I don't want to talk about it," he admitted) but did not elaborate further.