With the Macworld Expo currently in session, CNet has reported that Electronic Arts will announce that its highly anticipated "sim everything" game Spore, from the creative genius of Will Wright, is coming to the Mac as well the previously announced PC version. During the expo, EA is expected to show off the game running on Macs.

Importantly, the report notes that the game will debut simultaneously with its PC cousin later this year, which is a great sign of support for the Mac platform by EA. Last year the leading publisher announced that it would bring several of its top franchises to the Apple platform. Although many had feared that Spore might get delayed into next year, yet again, the news also seemingly reaffirms that it will indeed launch in 2008.

"With Spore in particular, we think the Macintosh user is somebody who is, typically, a creative individual," commented Patrick Buechner, vice president of marketing for EA's Maxis division. "Part of the appeal of the Mac is that it allows you to do creative things very easily. And we think that lines up very closely with what you can do with Spore, and we think those audiences are very similar. So it just feels like a natural place for Spore to be, and we're thinking about it up front rather than as an afterthought. We want to give it the full attention."

Unlike EA's other Mac releases, Spore will be different. "[Last year] each Mac version ended up missing the PC launch date by weeks or months--something EA would very much like to avoid in the future," CNet explained. "That's why EA is fine-tuning its relationship with Toronto-based TransGaming Technologies, a company that has developed a technology that makes it relatively easy for publishers like EA to develop Mac--or Linux--versions of a game side by side the PC versions."

Essentially the technology uses a "wrapper" that prompts the software to look for the proper Mac code calls instead of Windows-based code. So if Spore is looking to do a graphics call to DirectX, TransGaming's software will translate that so the game looks instead to the Mac graphics library. It's apparently a process that makes for a "seamless" gameplay experience on Macs.