Delay looms for Spore, analyst predicts

An industry analyst has gazed into his gaming crystal ball and predicted that Spore may not release until the end of the year.

Mike Hickey, analyst at Janco, reckons that underperformance of EA shares could force the publisher to push Will Wright's latest eagerly awaited game from March/April to autumn/winter 2008.

Apparently, the March/April date has come from "management guidance" - which we assume refers to comments from EA CEO John Riccitiello back in August '07 that he expects Spore to ship in the "March, April, May" 2008 timeframe.

However he added, "We will make the choice of shipping a better game than an on-time game given the high potential for this franchise." In other words, EA will happily delay it if needed.

Spore is an ambitious game that's essentially a life sim. Players start off as a single-cell organism and then create their species at every stage of its evolution - from its first steps on land through to tribes then a culture and then finally it's off to explore the galaxy.

Check out ourSpore coverageand clickhereto see more gaming predictions by our very own magic 8 ball.

Courtesy of CVG.

Jan 30, 2008