Kotaku is reporting that EA’s upcoming Spore has been delayed from fiscal 08 (after March 2007) to fiscal 09 (after March 2008). It looks like some news sources took some wrong turns because game magazine Game Informer originally reported the delay as an "infinite delay."
When Kotaku did a follow-up report and got the word about the delay from fiscal 08 to fiscal 09, which was already well-known because other news sources, including GamerNode, reported on that back in May.
Well, despite the mix-up, the underlying root of these stories is that although the eagerly anticipated game has been delayed for quite some time; it’s still guaranteed well over a year away. So what could be the reasons why?
Well, one angle could be that it’s simply too ambitious in scope. One of the main attractions of Spore is the ability to play and evolve from a single cell all the way to vast civilizations. As the game progresses through its "stages", Spore will adapt various styles of game play.
For example, the "cell stage" would mirror a Pac-Man game (chomping away at other "cells" to grow) while the "civilization stage" would mirror a SimCity or a Civilization game (create a massive city, etc..). It takes time to make all these different systems work together and still be fun.
Another reason could be that EA is trying to develop the game for other platforms. While Spore has been long confirmed to be coming to just PC, Will Wright has said in the past that Spore may be coming to consoles "sometime in the future" — Spore’s delay maybe due to some production snags on transferring the game over to consoles.
Nonetheless, at least the game is not indefinitely on-hold as Game Informer originally reported.
I’m sure many Spore enthusiasts wouldn’t have been too happy about that.
