Transcripts

"Tech Talk"-The Spore

SUSIE GHARIB: And finally tonight, Microsoft revealed the name of its new operating system, Nintendo wii sets the stage for a pint-sized rock star and the creator of Spore tells us what it`s all about Scott Gurvey has that and more in tonight`s "Tech Talk."

SCOTT GURVEY, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: As Paul noted earlier, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer triggered a buying frenzy in Yahoo! shares today telling a tech industry conference in Florida he thinks a deal with Yahoo! may still make sense. Microsoft once offered to buy Yahoo! for $33 a share but Yahoo! refused. Yahoo! shares are now selling for about $13. Microsoft has also named the successor to Windows Vista, now due in 2010. It will be called Windows Seven, which has a lot of people arguing about whether or not this is really the seventh version of Windows. Microsoft VP Bob Muglia says the company has also released a new version of its virtualization software for its current server product.

BOB MUGLIA, SR. VP, SERVER PRODUCTS, MICROSOFT: On one machine you can run say a Windows server 2003, a Windows server 2008 server as well as other software like Linux all together on one machine and by doing that, companies are able to make their server utilization go up save money and costs and power and things like that.

GURVEY: Youtube is now caught up in presidential politics. After getting complaints from copyright owners, youtube has removed campaign ads containing clips from broadcast news programs. The McCain campaign asked it to stop. Youtube said no. Video games for girls are still relatively rare, but today Electronic Arts shipped one for teens and tweens. Designed for the Nintendo wii, Boogie Super Star turns a living room into a stage for would-be rock stars. You design your look, pick your tunes, choreograph your moves and perform solo or with friends. The price is $60 and it comes with a microphone. And grownups take note, Electronic Arts sold more than one million copies of Spore in its first month. Spore is, well, let`s let creator Will Wright explain it.

WILL WRIGHT, CHIEF DESIGNER, MAXIS, ELECTRONIC ARTS: The simplest way to explain it is that it`s the story of life in the broadest possible sense, from the origin of life through the development of intelligence, technology and eventually going out into space and exploring the cosmos. But it`s also a game where the player`s in a creative role. At every step of the way, you`re creating your creatures, your buildings, your cities, your vehicles, your ships, eventually your spacecraft and eventually entire worlds. And when you make stuff it`s actually being shared with other players automatically so as you go out into your cosmos to millions of unique worlds, those worlds are populated with the creative output of all the other players.

GURVEY: You got that? Wright is the creator of the Sims and Sim City, as well as Spore, which sells for about $50 and it is just as addictive if not more. Scott Gurvey, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, New York.