[Switch]

Wow, well when it rains, it pours... to use an old cliché. All of a sudden we have six new screenshots and a new video from Maxis via IGN. IGN have also scored an interview with Patrick Buechner, Maxis' VP. In it he confirms that Spore will not be appearing at E3 this year, but will instead have a demo for the press at the Leipzig convention in August (and not just the creature editor this time). He also confirms a few other interesting bits and pieces, including the following, which I think is probably the biggest announcement:

Quote

IGN: "Are you planning on putting out some kind of demo or beta program?"

Patrick Buechner: "We are going to release the creature editor portion of Spore in advance of the core game release. Probably several weeks before. We know there are a lot of people anticipating Spore and we appreciate their patience. We really want to give them the game that they're waiting for."

A lot of people have been hoping this would happen (including me). Now we can practice our creature designs in advance of the game's release! Fun. Patrick has also appeared on G4 recently, but really it's the same thing as above with less information and clips of the video.

So, quite a day for Spore then! Sounds like there'll be more in August.

[Abramul]

4373?

[CJD]

What does that mean? 4373? Is that some sort of code?

[Povuholo]

No that's the news system doing weird. I saw it before. He'll fix it

[Switch]

*Smacks forehead* Why does it keep doing that? Restored the post. I think it's probably because Spore Source uses a very old version of the CMS... it's starting to mess up a bit. ^^;

[Vagrant0]

Hopefully by releasing the demo, they'll also be able to catch some potential bugs, catch issues with a wider range of hardware/software (read vista), and reduce the amount of hatemail they've been getting since announcing the delay of release.