According to Aspyr's website, The Sims 2 Nightlife Mac has just gone to its Gold Master meaning it should be in CD replication this very moment. That would mean Aspyr would have until the end of the week to ship for the March release, however that is pretty unlikey. Look for The Sims 2 Nightlife for Mac on store shelves in the upcoming week.

Thanks to Bryce for updating us on this.

With the wrap-up of GDC 06' it would seem that the Spore presentations did not fully live up to most fan's expectations, largely because they didn't bring anymore glamorous screenshots or video gameplay. However, as this IGN.com article discusses, there was still quite a bit of important information to be gleaned from the presentations. Notably, it seems as though the user generated creatures are only 10.5K and size, something that is hoped to be chopped down even further down to 3 or 2K. This would seem to indicate that indeed one will able to run Spore very easily with a dial-up connection.

Mac users can now get their hands on The Sims Complete Collection which combines the original The Sims as well as all of the expansion packs into one fun filled package of Sim-joy! You can read more details at Aspyr, the game is retailing at $50.

Already a few bloggers have given us some quick posts about Will Wright's keynote address, discussing that he went through a range of topics from his views on extraterrestrial life to Spore. You can read some initial impressions of the keynote at Next Generation and The Game Chair.

Also, Spore mobile has once again been confirmed directly from Will Wright himself even through Gaming Steve cast doubt on Spore mobile because of contact with EA. It is very unlikey that EA will make it official for a while. Along with this he expects a Nintendo DS and PSP versions.

If what this Wired piece says is true, we won't see Spore until 2007. The April 2006 piece notes that, "EA will release Spore next year", to the dismay of many fans who have been readily preparing for the game's release that was assumed to be later this year. More information on this delay will hopefully arrive with Will Wright's keynote, all it is difficult to say what caused it. If Spore was not going to make the winter shopping season release to begin with it may be a partially tactical decision to push the game back, or there may be some significant development still necessary.

Also, check out the Wired piece for some interesting previously unseen screenshot montages.

Red Herring has an excellent article on how Spore is set to turn the gaming industry on its head... again. More critically, the article discusses how user content will become a significant part in contributing to future games as these games adapt to the individual playing them.

Will Wright has an excellent piece in Wired Magazine, Dream Machines, that discusses how games can "unleash" one's imagination. The story gives Will Wright's amazing perspective on the integration of games into culture and how games are beginning to model the players who play them. A must read to understand how Will Wright came up with SimCity, The Sims and now Spore.

It seems that a mobile edition of Spore has been confirmed during a keynote address, by Mitch Laskey, the EA Mobile Sr. Vice President. Spore was "casually" slipped in Laskey's slide presentation this morning at the GDC as one of EA's "core" offerings for 2006. You can read the full details at Modojo.

CNET has an article detailing the opening of the 2006 GDC, meaning that over the next few days we can expect more news on Spore. The article also discusses how last year the hall that Will Wright was booked to speak in was filled to well beyond capacity because no one had predicted how popular he would be. A good place for Spore news will be from Gaming Steve which we will post as soon as its out.

The chat transcripts from the Open for Business chat that took place the other day on TheSims2.com is now availible. The chat details that a patch for the expansion pack is in the works and should be availible soon. The chat also includes business tips, what business makes the most money and how keep your business profitable while remote managing your business.

The Sims 2 Family Fun add-on pack is getting some press as well as the arrival of numerous screenshots of the items that you can use. Boomtown.net has a few details on the add-on pack, disussing some furniture sets as well as displaying a number of screenshots.

E3 has just annouced their speakers for their May 9-12th expo, including, of course, Will Wright. It is likely that Will Wright will use E3 to further show off Spore and its features, although whether or not the GDC over March 22nd-23rd will take any steam from Spore at E3 is yet to be seen.

Launching today, the Video Games Voters Network promises to bring a better awareness of what video games are about to the less than tech savvy government regulators. Set up by the Entertainment Software Association, the Video Games Voters Network had some commentary from Will Wright, who said, "It is vitally important that we protect and nurture this new art form so that it can reach its full potential. Like most new forms of artistic expression that have come before (music, novels, movies), the primary critics of video games are the people that do not play them." You can read more about the implications of the Video Games Voter Network at Gamasutra.

As of 1:45 MDT this morning, SimGlobal version 5 has come into being. Boasting a complete redesign which features better organization of pages and easier surfing, SimGlobal 5.0 has finally hit the net running. Of special interest are the new, dedicated pages for Lord of the Rings in SimCity 4, Narnia in SimCity 4 and the brand new Spore section. So come fly with us into the future of SimGlobal with version 5.0.

Update: We have just added a search page that will let you easily navigate over our past 4 years of archived Coranto news.

SimGlobal is preparing to take off with a new design within the next 24 hours. As a result, there will be a time period where we will be down while the changes take place. We do not know the exact time or length of this down time, but once we finish with the updates, SimGlobal will have an all new look that will make the down time worthwhile.

Hiding on a corner of TheSims2.com, The Sims Mobile seems to have barely recieved any press since its release late last year. Many more carriers now offer the game then its initial release, however, the page detailing the game is very lacking in information. There is mention of how there are many different versions of the game dependent on the user's handset, falling into two primary catagories; The Sims Connected Edition and The Sims Unconnected Edition. The Connected Edition allows you to download your own Sims from your computer to you phone, meaning that is is probably aimed at handsets with Bluetooth and Infrared capabilities.

Carnegie Mellon University has joined with EA to offer resources from The Sims for Alice, a new programming language meant to simplify programming for first time users. This means that animations and characters from The Sims will be available as learning tools for teaching Alice. The full story over at Gamasutra goes into more depth as to how Alice simplifies programming for novices.

Update: A more complete article detailing Alice and its applications as well as the use of The Sims in Alice can be found at wham.canoe.ca.

You can now view the Spore video uncut that was previously only available if you registered to view it on the GDC website through Google Video, as posted by Gaming Steve. The uncut version is over an hour long with more commentary from Will Wright. Something that was pointed out on Gaming Steve to clarify things is that this video is still only from the 2005 GDC, meaning that we can expect quite a bit to come out March 20-24th at this year's GDC.

The Sims 2 fans were quick to replicate the gowns worn by Hollywood starlets during the Oscars, as detailed in the Reuters story. While the story does not go until much detail, it reinforced that more than half of The Sims players are female. What is the most remarkable about this is the reponsiveness of The Sims community to produce the gowns as well as coverage by a major news outlet, showing how "The Sims" has truly become a household term.

SimArchitect has returned from the dead ready to serve all of your SimCity 3000 content needs! With an extensive database hosting content for BAP, BAT as well as props, paints and details SimArchitect is an excellent resource for custom SC3K content. We are very pleased to see them back up again as one of our long time affiliates.

The screenshots quite simple do not do Spore any justice- now you can have a look at the Spore video that Will Wright presented at the GDC. The creature creation tool is quite simply amazing, not to mention the programming that regulates (automatically!) how the creatures walk, run and move. It seems that with this level of sophistication many of us will have to look at upgrading our computers for the full Spore experience.