During an iPhone SDK press conference today, Travis Boatman from EA to showed off a slimmed-down version of Spore that will run on the iPhone. Taking advantage of the iPhone's accelerometer, this version of Spore should be an interesting iteration of the game. No word yet on any details - we will be interested to see if you can sync it with your desktop version!

The Sims 3 is official - although we won't get to hear any more about it until March 19th, the date when a NDA agreement barring release of data from a news conference is lifted. While you can get some more info from Strategy Informer, the best part might be the new website.

Maxis/EA have announced the release date for Spore. This long awaited game will finally hit shelves on September 7, 2008. You can see the announcement teaser here.

EA has released screenshots of SimCity Societies. They can be viewed at CVG. From the descriptions provided by EA and from the screenshots available at CVG, it appears that SCS is a fully 3D, glorified version of Simsville, the cancelled Maxis venture from 2001. Gamestop has SimCity Societies available for pre-order, with an expected ship date of November 13, 2007.

Spore is now back on the table, and that news to the contrary was "misinformation". Read the full story at Next-Gen. Hopefully, this means a Spring 2008 arrival - with EA's urgency to get some bread on the table, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw it on time...

In a breaking news report from Kotaku, we have found out that Spore is now indefinitely delayed. Could this have something to do with EA's recent restructuring plan? It would seem that The Sims franchise is the only vestige left of Maxis, and even that has been milked dry by EA.

According to Computer and Video Games, the SimCity franchise as we know it is finished. Reportedly, Maxis has passed off the development of SimCity to the same team who developed Civilization IV, "Tilted Mill". The new incarnation of SimCity is said to be a far cry from the SimCity we all know an love.

R.I.P. SimCity

Yesterday SimGlobal passed its 6th birthday on the internet. 6 years ago SimGlobal was a much more modest looking website, however, our goal of providing news for Sim related games remains unchanged today! Thank you for your ongoing patronage!

Well, it seems as though EA isn't counting on seeing Spore at the end of FY 2008 (March 31st 2008), so neither should you. Altough the most dire predictions see Spore being pushed out to 2009, my guess would be fall 2008. Still a long ways away, however! You can get some more details at Reuters UK, however, we haven't heard anything from the Spore team themselves with regards to the delay.

It would seem that EA has scored a further publicity coup by teaming up with several design schools to create exhibitions based on The Sims. The full article, entitled EA asks artists to celebrate 'The Sims' details that the exhibitions will be across multiple types of media and will compete for $36,000 in prizes. I'm sure that it will also be a great way for young artisits to get noticed by EA - not bad if they are heading in a graphic design or advertising route.