Ports of Sega's Super Monkey Ball and Maxis' hugely anticipated life-sim Spore are in development for Apple's iPhone, Gizmodo reports.

The news dropped during a conference at Apple's headquarters in which the company detailed the release of the iPhone software developer's kit. Speaking on the possibility of game development on the platform, Apple revealed that versions of Spore and Super Monkey Ball are already in the works.

The titles both showcase the use of the iPhone's 3D capabilities, and utilize the phone's multitouch screen and built-in accelerometers. Apple also pointed out that the iPhone port of Spore is not a scaled-down affair; all 18 levels, from the microbic to cosmic, are represented in Spore's iPhone incarnation.

No price point or release date was mentioned, but Apple stated that all upcoming applications and games in development for the iPhone will be available exclusively on the newly-launched App Store, accessible via iTunes, the iPhone and the iPod Touch.

GamersGlobal and bit-tech.net both have Spore previews posted, going hands-on with PC and DS versions of the game.

With the release date announced, IGN has a new Spore Q&A with Maxis' Lucy Bradshaw and Morgan Roarty. Topics include the release date, the simultaneous PC/DS release, Wii plans and more.

Electronic Arts is unsurprisingly planning future iterations for many of the hit franchises it publishes, including EA Black Box's Need for Speed, Criterion's Burnout, EA Black Box's Skate, and Harmonix's Rock Band.

EA president Frank Gibeau discussed the plans in an analyst meeting today, listing them as part of the company's "turn-around" strategy, which is focused on "a strong pipeline of innovative sequels and new IP" and increased digital revenue through titles such as Mythic's Warhammer Online and EA DICE's Battlefield Heroes.

As for the new IP, the president highlighted the company's plans to publish EA Los Angeles' Tiberium, BioWare's Dragon Age, DICE's Mirror's Edge, Pandemic's Saboteur, Valve's Left 4 Dead, and EA Redwood Shores' Dead Space.

Gibeau also mentioned the company's plans for EA Maxis' just-dated Spore (PC, NDS), detailing that efforts to bring the evolutionary simulator to more platforms and produce expansion content are already underway. The studio is known to be working on a Wii edition of the game.

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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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.

On Episode 15 of the ShackCast, Steve Gibson, Chris Remo, Nick Breckon, and Chris Faylor discuss an astounding variety of topics.

These subjects include Spore, Eye of Judgment (PS3), Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3), the rumored new Star Wars MMO, Samba de Amigo Wii, Soldier of Fortune 3, Hellgate: London, Jade Raymond at the grocery story, and more. We also branch out into the realm of visuals this week, supplying you, our gentle listener, with visual aides for the Impossible Creatures segment.

Unfortunately, in our rush to bring you the latest in Shack auditory entertainment, we neglected to sketch out the traditional timestamped breakdown. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience.

Photo: Kotaku

If you have questions or comments about video games, the Shack, or the ShackCast, be sure to send an email to shackcast@shacknews.com!

Play or download the podcast now, or snag it through iTunes, RSS, or Digg. Feel free to venture into our immense backlog as well.

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

This week, Chris Remo, Chris Faylor, and Nick Breckon discuss Warhawk on PS3, Spore, Jeanne D'Arc on PSP, Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix on Xbox Live Arcade, BioShock's copy protection on PC, and EA and Ubisoft's recently-released free full games and the ads that come along with some of them.

Plus, for some reason, we have a convoluted puzzle game discussion including such titles as Planet Puzzle League, Zuma, Tetris 2, and Spider Solitaire! We don't know why!

From now on, send comments or questions to shackcast@shacknews.com. If you have something interesting to say or ask, we'll highlight it on the next show!

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

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

IGN has a Spore update, asking EA's Patrick Buechner for the latest on the game. Article comes with new media.

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.

The Popular Science website has an eight page interview with Will Wright, asking the game designer all about Spore. Topics include the game's learning curve, science, changes to his original vision, content sharing, plans for other platforms and plenty more. Thanks Vooodoo Extreme.

In news that was apparently whispered around various quarters before finally being conclusively reported this weekend, famed musician, producer, and artist Brian Eno is set to create the soundtrack to Will Wright's highly anticipated upcoming evolution simulator Spore. Perhaps best known for his production work on albums by bands such as Talking Heads and U2, among others, Eno's continuing musical career also includes a long and diverse solo discography. Serving as the link to Wright's current efforts is Eno's penchant for creating generative music--that is, complex algorithms that create nigh infinite different musical permutations within the confines of the given program. Similarly, Spore is almost entirely built on generative procedures, with the player supplying various parameters for life at a range of evolutionary stages, and the game creating on the fly realizations of players' creatures or, later in the game, societies. Eno's music for Spore will make use of generative techniques.

Freely available on the official site of the Long Now Foundation is a lecture co-delivered last year by Eno and Wright, in which both creators speak on their own generative projects and elocute on such topics as the nature of culture and the essence of design. (Thanks GameSetWatch)