If you live near or in San Francisco and have some free time on your hands tonight, you may want to head over to San Francisco's Apple Store to watch an hour-long demo of the full game of Spore (PC, Nintendo Wii, DS, Mac, and Mobile), as hosted by Will Wright. The full details after the jump!

This issue is another one of those weeks where you could selectively stave off from spending hard-earned cash, but then there are millions of gamers who need their gaming fix. Gladly enough, third-party publishers on the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii have addressed the casual gaming populace, and that pretty much sums up this week's retail release line up. On second thought, no - we still have an MMO, EA Maxis' pre-Spore sampler, a formerly retail, now PSN game, plus the release of Rock Band on the Nintendo Wii. Check the full story for details.

Heads up, Oddworld fans. We've now got additional confirmation for an upcoming Oddworld game, courtesy of Oddworld Inhabitants president Lorne Lanning. Learn more about this development after the jump!

Wondering when something that can top the graphics on games like Crysis  will come along? The co-founder of Maxis has some answers. He says he and the team over at OddWorld Inhabitants (OWI) are working on a new game with CG movie-like visuals. Full story comes after the jump.

Gamers, here's good news: Will Wright's Spore (PC, Mac, Wii, Nintendo DS, Mobile) now has a definite release date, and we can now finally stop guessing when the game will come out. Sure, the date may be several months away but at least we now have a something real to look forward to. Find out Spore's actual release date in the full article!

So. Will Wright finally confirmed the existence of Spore on the Nintendo Wii. But what about versions for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3? The other day, Will Wright was interviewed by Guardian Unlimited, and it was then revealed that they, to quote the BAFTA Fellowship inductee, "doing Spore on the Wii."

Today, we'll put that statement into the context in which it was actually said. Just in case you guys missed the whole interview, a certain segment has the father of all things Simlish talk about next generation consoles:

Somebody asked me what I thought next generation meant and what about the PlayStation 3 was next generation. The only next gen system I've seen is the Wii - the PS3 and the Xbox 360 feel like better versions of the last, but pretty much the same game with incremental improvement. But the Wii feels like a major jump %u2013 not that the graphics are more powerful, but that it hits a completely different demographic. In some sense I see the Wii as the most significant thing that's happened, at least on the console side, in quite a while.

Pretty bold statements, true. But everyone's entitled to their own opinion. Moving on though, it turns out that Will Wright's got a different kind of home entertainment console set up (or lack thereof) at home. "We've got an Xbox 360 collecting dust in the background, a Wii hooked up that we use quite a bit. I don't have a PS3. I still, for the most part, prefer playing games on the computer - to me the mouse is the best input device ever." He then continues with:

Every generation it's like "the PC's dead! The PC's dead!". But it carries on growing when consoles are flat for five years. At the moment I can get better graphics on my PC than I can on the PS3.

We're doing Spore on the Wii, and we did MySims. It takes significant re-thinking to work out how you're going to do it. PS3 and Xbox 360 are similar enough that you can basically use the same system for both. So it comes down to what the interesting major platforms are and which markets we want to hit.

Again, these are just his personal thoughts on the matter. He seems pretty candid about it too. Despite this, everyone's still hoping that Spore would eventually make it across all platforms. After all, Spore has already been considered a franchise by Maxis Executive Patrick Buechener. Right now, there are the PC, DS, and mobile versions of Spore being readied for a Spring release. Only time will tell if other next-gen consoles get spored over.

When the god of god games himself speaks, the world has no choice but to listen. Will Wright, the creator behind some of the biggest "god games" like Populous and SimCity, talks about the development of his upcoming life sim, Spore (PC, Wii, DS, Mobile), as well as the changing trend on how society adapts to games in general.

As a game designer, Wright wanted his games to appeal to a wider range of people. While gamers were busy killing off each other in all manner of shooter games, he was busy making games which created stuff - thus the birth of the SimCity and The Sims franchise. With most of his games having a strong scientific element, he enjoys making and playing games which call for a lot of innovation in the gaming industry.

He said that games today need to "culturally disconnect the concepts of play and education", only then will can we say that people as a whole have developed in an evolutionary sense. Wright said that when society gains interest and get emotionally involved with games, that's the only time that it becomes culturally acceptable and the next phase of evolution can set in for the industry.

He had his on take on how the gaming industry can be used to focus this movement:

I think the game industry could use spokespeople that try to represent the potential of gaming. The industry hasn't even begun to realise its potential – we're getting there very slowly – but in the meantime we need to be educating the public as to what this can eventually become. If we have more discussion about what games could be versus what they are right now, we might get there sooner.

With the finishing touches on Spore all prepared for its debut six months from now, Wright admitted that there were so many things that he and the developers at Maxis want to include in the game. However, they're still trying to find the "sweet spot" between what they want for both the game and the gamers. While Maxis is known for a lot of its games taking its roots on the PC, Spore will also see versions for both the handheld and console platform. Wright noted specifically that everyone will be seeing Spore on the Wii just as with their previous release, MySims.

 

One of the more anticipated games of this generation is Will Wright's Spore (PC, DS) - a title that promises not only the insane level of customization that Will Wright masterpieces have been known for, but also the ability of making your own unique life-form, starting right down to the cellular level.

And while current updates about the game have been less than optimistic - with a delay that sees us nabbing copies next year at the earliest - this one about Maxis planning console versions of the game should brighten things up considerably.

Yes, you read that right. Maxis is planning to port the game over to consoles. This means we won't just be playing and showing off our creations on our PCs and Dual Screens, but also on our favorite next-gen behemoths of gaming goodness.

This delicious bit of news comes directly from Maxis Executive Patrick Buechener, during a closed-doors demo of Spore in Leipzig GC. When asked about a console version of Spore, his statement, verbatim, goes:

Not right now, but we see this as a franchise. It just won't be at launch.

It's to note that he didn't single out nor exclude any of today's next-gen consoles - which could mean great news for all owners, as we just might see a console-wide release of the game that lets you create your very own species. That said, it'll definitely be interesting as to what sort of creatures we'll be seeing from the different versions of Spore, and how their platform affects the creatures produced.

Electronic Arts has cobbled together a new trailer for MySims, an upcoming title for the Nintendo Wii and DS video game platforms based on Maxis' The Sims series.

The trailer essentially gives players a quick preview of how the gameplay goes in both the Wii and DS version of MySims. Everything from building a house to designing your character in the Wii version is included in the trailer. The DS preview isn't as in-depth, though.

Anyway, check out the video below. MySims will be available for both platforms on September 18.

By going for a chibified Sim in MySims, not only has Electronic Arts maximized the "Aww, cute!" factor inherent with most things chibi, they've surprisingly been able to incorporate a greater range of expressiveness than their more anthropomorphic-faithful Sim cousins in the Maxis parent The Sims.

As you will see in this GameTrailers trailer for MySims, the greater facial surface area allows for very quirky and very funny facial expressions as well as body language. No thought bubbles or Simlish can be seen or heard in this trailer, but it's too early to presume that facial + body language will be the primary means of communication in MySims, or this trailer's just on Simlish mute.

Oh, and as you will also see in this trailer, it is not wise to rile someone whose hair speaks of gangland and whose eyes speak of la-la-land. You have been warned, so EA games will not be responsible for any gang-related violence YourSim suffers.