Spore growing on handhelds

Job listing reveals Will Wright's eagerly awaited biosphere-civilization sim will come to unnamed portables.

With nearly 60 million copies sold across all platforms, there's no question that The Sims is one of the most popular franchises in gaming. Given its success, it only made sense for its publisher, Electronic Arts to bring the PC-centric series to every other device possible. Last fall, the company released The Sims 2 on all current-generation consoles and handhelds, including the Nintendo DS, the PlayStation Portable, and the Game Boy Advance.

Given that precedent, it should come as little surprise that EA is also planning to bring Spore, the next game from Sims creator Will Wright, to handhelds as well. That plan was confirmed by a recent job posting on GameDev.net for a "Handheld Designer: SPORE" position.

"Located in beautiful Emeryville, CA," read the ad, "the Spore team is looking for an experienced designer that will be responsible for designing, creating, and maintaining game systems and content for SPORE Handheld titles." The lucky recipient of the job will be asked to "drive vision and design for both internal and external design teams for launch of handheld titles for SPORE."

While the job listing laid out its requirements for candidates in extensive detail--anyone without "previous experience as a design lead" and less than five years of experience need not apply--it did not mention any specific platforms for a portable Spore. No version of the game has a concrete release date, but GameSpot's E3 2005 Impressions has more details on the PC edition.

47 Comments

  • Dude_Face35

    Posted Jun 3, 2006 6:03 pm PT

    YES SPORE! i was looking forward this game and this just made it better SWEET!

  • comthitnuong

    Posted May 30, 2006 3:59 pm PT

    awsome

  • jazzkid212

    Posted May 22, 2006 12:49 pm PT

    please god let it be on DS i dont have the money to upgrade my comp for it

  • rainmanstile

    Posted Mar 13, 2006 3:22 pm PT

    im betting this ia a cheesy way of advertising and bringing some attention to the game. on the other hand it could be that this hand held version will be a mickey mouse version sorta-like a demo but bigger and costs you money. if you watched to the end of the movie you saw that you had an entire galaxy of worlds that could all be zoomed into down to eye level. and you mean to tell me that is going to fit onto a hand held. whats next a cray 2 on a cell phone?

  • kevster812

    Posted Mar 10, 2006 12:09 pm PT

    im gonna get it for pc

  • IhateMario

    Posted Mar 7, 2006 11:56 am PT

    a great oportunity for someone

  • mistertemper818

    Posted Mar 6, 2006 5:07 pm PT

    wutts spore??????????????????????

  • tienchiha

    Posted Mar 6, 2006 1:07 am PT

    Im just wondering if the DS can handle procedural generation power-wise. It would be perfect for it. The touch screen, the 2nd screen, and the microphone fits this game to a tee. The only thing I am worried about is size of procedural generation. The PSP wouldnt be able to handle the controls with the analog nub and the load times.

  • Jiggafly117

    Posted Mar 4, 2006 6:09 pm PT

    GO ON VIDEO.GOOGLE.com and type spoer the ga,e

    its amazing

  • jin_ohi25

    Posted Mar 4, 2006 1:02 am PT

    WoW!!

  • jin_ohi25

    Posted Mar 4, 2006 1:01 am PT

    thats great

  • n2Deepeth

    Posted Mar 1, 2006 9:01 pm PT

    For some reason, Japanese people really like the DS, even more than the PS2. It's definitely a good console, and hopefully, it can reach the same popularity in the US. I'd really like to play a lot of new games with a touch screen and microphone.

  • wayofthesauce

    Posted Mar 1, 2006 4:18 pm PT

    To everyone who says the DS doesnt have the power needed to run such a game: Take a good long loook at MP:Hunters and tell me it can't pull off some good graphics if done right. Granted MP:Hunters is over a year in development but the end result is looking amazing.

    The PSP is also very capable but the problems with strategy and RTS games on it is the much shorter battery life and that a control pad/nub is a little less intuitive than a touch screen. Plus Nintendo WiFi is gaining strength so unless sony puts together something as organized they can expect to lose a lot of games to the DS just because of the massive WiFi base. That's yet another reason to make a Starcraft DS too

  • fabtep

    Posted Mar 1, 2006 2:51 pm PT

    The google video footage is a part of the GDC TV Session (see my post above). However posted that there cut out all of what Will said when he was not showing scenes from the game.

  • limpbizkit818

    Posted Mar 1, 2006 2:33 pm PT

    they have gameplay footage on google video. So amaing.

  • Sandman100

    Posted Mar 1, 2006 10:53 am PT

    Looks like a cool game.

  • chrisdojo

    Posted Mar 1, 2006 5:02 am PT

    why do they mention the sims in the article? oh well.

  • jakeboudville

    Posted Mar 1, 2006 12:00 am PT

    awesome

  • Reetesh

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 11:23 pm PT

    I think it will be a great thing on handheld But only thing is that .... can a handle have that uch POWER to process all those things that Spore is expected to do?

  • jamil2nice

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 9:11 pm PT

    it's probably the Microsoft Origami

  • Tremblay343

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 6:23 pm PT

    I hope this doesn't come out on the DS. go shove that thing up your huge A**es! Nintendo is the biggest bunch of hypocrites ever! We're all about the gaming and innovation. But wait, the psp seems to be doing good with all its new features, how about we use them, even though we said we didn't need them. losers. The DS is almost as gay as that new rev controller.

  • ConfuseRay

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 5:50 pm PT

    i hope it's good.

  • davahsa

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 5:37 pm PT

    Spore not being announced on current gen or 360?....Seems strange

  • SnowFarmer

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 4:46 pm PT

    Spore really interests me, not sure about a handheld version. I'll wait nd see how the PC version turns out, but it is going to have to be stunningly brilliant for me to give any money to EA.

  • dimsey

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 3:48 pm PT

    Cant say I didnt see this coming, if for DS it should be sweet.

  • fabtep

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 3:44 pm PT

    If you want to learn about spore from Will Wright himself (through his presentation at GDC 2005): register at the following site, go to Will Wright discusses his new game creation called "Spore" and get amazed:



    GDC TV

    The session is long - but you won't regret sticking to it until the end!



    I have my doubts about this getting a good portable title as well though - not memorywise, but CPU-wise. Procedural methods are demanding as far as I know...

  • homsuplo75

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 3:36 pm PT

    I'll most likely first get this for my PC since that is about the best platform to play ANY type of sim game. If the game is good then I'll most likely get it for my DS too. It would be great to be able to start a spore on the DS and then move it over to the PC once it becomes more than the DS can handle.

  • NeoJedi

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 3:27 pm PT

    Can't wait for E3 this year to see some more of Spore.

  • alberto2045

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 2:56 pm PT

    60 MILLION COPIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THATS A LOT OF COPIES LOL IT MUST BE GOOD.

  • Zanza_Unleashed

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 2:54 pm PT

    no offense, but i just cant see how it could work control wise on the psp. but who knows, the ds's textures wouldtn be very good for this either. i guess ill wait and see

  • Tomtomtom1990

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 2:33 pm PT

    To unreal_ed: Instead of saving, for example, a tree, you save the instructions needed to make a tree. Since instructions are just text, it just takes up a few kilobytes, whereas a pre-made tree, with all the textures, animations, etc. would take hundreds of kilobytes. It's how Oblivion fits on to a single DVD, it's how you can watch replays in COD2 and BF2 without having to open up Windows Media Player, and it's the future.

  • unreal_ed

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 1:49 pm PT

    I haven't seen any video about this game but everyone that has has told me it is amazing. TO Bogfred : What new technology?

  • Bawishe

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 1:48 pm PT

    Maybe it's for Microsofts's rumored protable. There was some rumors going around a while back that it was coming to the Xbox. And the portable has a rumored touch screen. It would be a perfect match.

  • mrimkeit

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 1:28 pm PT

    Sweet, I have both DS and PSP so am covered. DS would be cool because of the touch screen and PSP would be cool because of the graphics. Personally I want a Starcraft for DS, but that is just dreaming.

  • AlexWills

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 12:20 pm PT

    [This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

  • MiKaNoH

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 10:44 am PT

    that game will rocks

  • astarnamedrin

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 10:22 am PT

    I think Spore itself looks interest. It will be fun to see what they do with it on handhelds.

  • Schillinger

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 10:14 am PT

    I'm gonna wait and see if Spore on the PC is actually any good in the first place. Here's hoping.

  • ardavies1

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 10:14 am PT

    The timing makes you think of the origami project - what a launch title this would make! - and with the large, clear touch screen it would certainly work well.

    More likely, though, is a port to the DS or the PSP - the questions being, I guess, how much processing power does it need, and what cool things could they do with the touch screen?

  • rbarahona

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 10:08 am PT

    It would be cool to play this game in the Nintendo DS. Let's hope that will be the case.

  • ahadj

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 9:52 am PT

    It will defiantely come on DS and PSP,but I dont think it will come to GBA

  • Bogfred

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 9:51 am PT

    This might work. Apparently, their new technology means they can fit a playable 3D game in less than 1Kb. So, they should be able to fit Spore on a UMD.

  • sidescroller

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 9:29 am PT

    Interesting... does this have anything to do with Microsoft's Origami project? I hope it's a DS title, as neither the GBA nor the PSP would make sense control-wise.

    Although, I think the PSP would be a better system overall for it.

  • Oni

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 9:01 am PT

    That's very interesting!! I'd love to see if they let uploads between multi-platforms be interchangable.

  • Donkeljohn Site moderator

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 8:48 am PT

    Spore seems ambitious for a handheld's processing power, but Emeryville is beautiful.

  • dwmorrow

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 8:46 am PT

    I've said it once and I'll say it again - the DS' touch screen is perfect for strategy games. Bring it on.

  • frankeyser

    Posted Feb 28, 2006 8:45 am PT

    oh i hope i get this on my ds i do i do. but i think it wil be on my psp for some reason.

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