Gamesradar reports on the newest expansion pack for The Sims 3.  For the first time, Sims are able to leave the suburbs and live the high-rise lifestyle downtown!.  Excerpt:

The Sims 3: Late Night – Good clean debauchery

The Sims franchise has always taken place in an idealized world, with your Sims enjoying huge houses with nice yards in a relaxed neighborhood with a small town feel. But it’s always been limited to the suburban ideal – what about those of us who want to vicariously live the big city fantasy? Enter the Late Night expansion for Sims 3, where you can design a penthouse in the sky with a hot tub on the roof, the perfect spot for skinny dipping with vampires…

For more, see the original Gamesradar article at http://www.gamesradar.com/pc/the-sims-3/preview/the-sims-3-late-night-good-clean-debauchery/a-20100813154719339066/g-20061106113750640058.  Then, discuss in our Simphoni Forums.

We just caught up with this, as reported by GameSpot:

Maxis hiring for PC online simulation game

The Electronic Arts-owned Maxis studio will announce an action role-playing game set in the Spore universe at Comic-Con 2010 next week, but the developer is also seeking to employ an individual to work on a new online simulation game for the PC.

Might Maxis attempt to resurrect The Sims Online?

A job listing spotted by Superannuation asks for a development director for an unannounced “next-generation online simulation game” at the Maxis studio in Emeryville, California.

The rest of the article can be seen at http://www.gamespot.com/news/6269152.html?…mp;subj=6269152
The EA job listing can be seen at https://jobs.ea.com/search/view.do?id=a0z50000000IafoAAC

Gregory of Monte Cristo Games announced in a post at Simtropolis on Tuesday that Monte Cristo will be closing its doors within the week.  The license for the sale of Cities XL has been purchased by a third-party publisher, who will be identified soon.   The news was also reported Thursday at Big Download.

Monte Cristo announced the North America  released date for Cities XL.   Discuss in the forums at http://www.simphoni.net/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=16117&view=findpost&p=399440.

North American players, rejoice! Monte Cristo is glad to announce the release of Cities XL in North America on October, 9th. 

The product will be available on our secure website www.citiesxl.com through:

• mail order of the boxed version covering USA and Canada (Shipping will be free of charge!)
• digital download

The following digital download network will also support Cities XL: Steam, Direct2Drive, Trygames, Impulsedriven, Gametap

Check back on our website often for more info on special promotions and more partners!

The Cities XL Team. 

North American players, rejoice! Monte Cristo is glad to announce the release of Cities XL in North America on October, 9th. 

The product will be available on our secure website www.citiesxl.com through:

• mail order of the boxed version covering USA and Canada (Shipping will be free of charge!)
• digital download

The following digital download network will also support Cities XL: Steam, Direct2Drive, Trygames, Impulsedriven, Gametap

Check back on our website often for more info on special promotions and more partners!

The Cities XL Team.

At SIMphoni we just recieved word from MaxisCactus at Maxis if a new Spore API.  She says,

“Here at Maxis, we’re working on some features that will help you enrich your fansites by creating your own Spore applications. 

We’re collecting these features into a web-based Spore API. Using simple web services, you can access our huge database of creations and creators. We have samples and quick-reference sheets to get you started. If you have questions, feedback, or want to announce your awesome app, head over to the Spore forum.”

You can find everything you need to get started here:

http://www.sporeapi.com

This Saturday night in North America, while you are pacing the floor in anticipation of Spore’s release on Sunday knowing our European friends are already playing it, you can watch a two-hour-long documentary special on The Discovery Channel television network, entitled, “The Future Is Wild and the Making Of Spore“. It will play twice on Saturday, September 6: once at 8pm Eastern time, 7 Central, 6 Mountain, and 5 Pacific, then again four hours later at 12E, 11C, 10M, and 9P. These are the only two times the program is currently scheduled to be aired. An advance description of the two-hour special states,

“Documentary, Special, (2008) A look into the future of how the world evolves millions of years from now and how this special inspired the video game Spore.”

The Discovery Channel is the flagship of Discovery Communications, LLC, which provides primarily educational programming to 810 television subscribers in more than 170 countries. Its sister channels, The Learning Channel (TLC), Animal Planet, Discovery Health, Discovery Kids, The Science Channel, The Military Channel, The Travel Channel, BBC America, BBC World, and others, each provide 24/7 educational and historical documentaries.

SIMphoni does not yet have information about showings in other regions of the world, but those of you with Discovery Channel access should check your local television listings for broadcast times.

SIMphoni benefited from the Spore Community Day at Maxis in Emoryville, California in a big way!  On Friday August 22, Rexer joined a few other web sites in previewing Spore, the biggest game release of 2008.   That weekend, daily SIMphoni visitors spiked from around 220 to over 900!  Many of those visitors have stayed with us as daily visits following the spike settled at around 320 through the end of the month.

We are hopeful that we will keep these new visitors. Less than one week from now, Spore will be released on the worldwide markets.  We expect another enormous spike beginning the weekend of September 5-7, and hopefully continuing for several weeks as new players acquire Spore and look on-line for information, news and discussion about the new game.

This video was recorded by Rex Stanfield (Rexer) of Simphoni at Maxis Studios in Emeryvile, California on Friday, August 22, 2008. As part of Spore Community Day, representatives of around a dozen fan sites were given the hands-on oppurtunity to play Spore. Afterward, a panel of key Maxis developers offered a question and answer session. The panel consisted of:

• Caryl (MaxisLucky) Shaw, Producer
• Lucy Bradshaw, Executive Producer
• Thomas Vu, Producer
• Tom Bui, Engineer
• Bob King, Art Director
• Chris Seifert, Audio Engineer

The camera had enough battery power to record only around the first one-half of the Q&A. Rex really needs to bring more camera batteries along next time! But, some interesting new information about Spore is shown here.

The questioners included:

• Artistvrd from Hooked On Spore (Spore Profile)
• Cyven from MySporePage (Spore Profile)
• Geekorama from SporeTube (Spore Profile)

 

 

• Hydromancer from Sagan 4 and Sporewiki (Spore Profile)
• Jud Hudson from SporePrograms (Spore Profile)
• LadyM from Gaming Steve and Sagan4 (Spore Profile)
• Petreak from Sporesite (Spore Profile)
• Rexer from Simphoni (Spore Profile)
• Rybolton fromSporeum and formerly from Simtropolis (Spore Profile)
• xDreamache from xSpore.com (Spore Profile)  

Rex also captured an audio recording of the entire Q&A, and the questions and answers revealing new information about Spore were played and discussed as part of The Simphoni Podcast Special Spore Community Day Episode.

More information and discussion about the Community Day and Spore can be found at the Simphoni Forums.

This video was recorded by Rex Stanfield (Rexer) of Simphoni at Maxis Studios in Emeryvile, California on Friday, August 22, 2008. Caryl (MaxisLucky) Shaw demonstrates Spore two weeks before its release to a group of fan site representatives as part of Spore Community Day. The video recorded only around the first two-thirds of the demo before the camera’s battery gave up the ghost. But, some interesting new information about Spore is shown here.

Rex also captured an audio recording of the entire demo, and the questions and answers revealing new information about Spore were played and discussed as part of The Simphoni Podcast Special Spore Community Day Episode.

More information and discussion about the Community Day and Spore can be found at the Simphoni Forums.

You may have noticed over the past few days that Simphoni has added links to certain items of interest at Amazon.com.  We have partnered with Amazon in several countries, and with bol.com in The Netherlands. By clicking on an item you are taken to the Amazon.com site for that item. When you purchase the item, a portion of the sale comes to Simphoni as a referral commission on that item and any other items in the order! Revenues from these sales are used to defer the costs of running this site, and to finance additional site growth. At present there are five pages at which items can be purchased to help support SIMphoni: US, Canada, France, the UK and The Netherlands. Future plans involve adding pages for Germany, Japan, and China.

The Main Simphoni Shoppe Page contains featured items for each country and links to each international page. The featured items will be regularly updated with the latest items of interest. For example, there you can find new and upcoming items like The Tales of Beedle the Bard, the latest upcoming book by J. K. Rowling, based on the Harry Potter series, and Madden NFL 09. There is also a DVD featuring Will Wright and Brian Eno, Playing With Time, where the pair talks about creating video games. (I am ordering this one for myself!) And, of course, be sure to buy or pre-order Spore right here at The Simphoni Shoppe. In each international page, you can search the Amazon in that country without even leaving Simphoni’s pages, and create custom links for anything that can be purchased through Amazon!