FiringSquad.com is reporing that there are some new official Spore screenshots from the Spore website. Along with that, GamersHell.com has compiled a Spore Movie Pack for our viewing pleasure.

Aspyr's latest newsletter discusses that they are currently working on several new universal binary patches to allow for improved performance on OS X games running on the recent Intel Macs. Notably, they included SimCity 4 on the list, good news for Mac SimCity players and Aspyrs dedication to the SimCity line. You can find out more about the other games to be patched in the MacNN piece.

IGN was lucky enough to get a private Spore show from Will Wright at the Games Convention from which they brought back several videos. The videos detail several aspects of the game including what appears to be an updated interface. You can read the full story behind the videos at IGN.com.

The Sims 2 Open for Business expansion pack for Mac has hit Gold Master, according to the Aspyr website. This means that we can expect the game to be shipping in the next couple of weeks (perhaps even before September?). No word yet on whether or not Family Fun Stuff or Pets will be the next Mac The Sims 2 port.

We just discovered the source of the delayed release date information - a GameSpot interview with Will Wright. The interview, like the IGN, include some interesting screenshots that are worth a look.

A second GameSpot piece digs further into the release date delay news noting that the game will not be released before July 2007.

It would seem that Eurogamer is reporting that Spore will not be hitting shelves until the second half of the year. The delay was quoted from Will Wright himself.

Also, make sure to have a look at the latest IGN Interview with Will Wright, as it gets into some more of the nitty gritty about the game than other recent interviews.

An exclusive piece over at SPOnG has a few quotes from Will Wright noting that "we’re thinking about Spore as a franchise, not as a PC game". Wright goes on to discuss that he believes the Nintendo Wii offers far more creative opportunities than the PS3 and XBox 360, and that each version of Spore will custom tailored depending on the abilities of the device.

Although there hasn't been nearly as much buzz around the mobile version of SimCity as there has for The Sims, it seems that it may finally be arriving later this year. The EA Q1 2007 earnings conference call (the EA fiscal year is offset from the regular year) notes that SimCity should be arriving in Q2 (later this year). You can read the full transcript of the call here, although you will need to Ctrl-F to find the mention of SimCity. What version of SimCity the mobile edition is to be based off of yet is as of yet unknown although we wouldn't be surprised if it was SimCity 2000 jazzed up with SimCity 3000 and SimCity 4 elements.