EA unveils Nucleus social games layer

EA has unveiled new social games service Nucleus, which will track gamer preferences, scores and relationships and allow you to set challenges for friends across EA games on multiple formats.

The publisher will start by implementing Nucleus in all its sports games, Spore and Battlefield Heroes, and plans to have support for it in 25 titles by the end of 2009.

Nucleus will also power disparate microtransaction purchases, like guns, maps and outfits in BF Heroes and items in The Sims 2 Store.

Shawn Fanning of Napster fame, whose company Rupture was bought out by EA recently, took the stage at Monday's EA press conference at E3 to explain the concept further.

Nucleus, Fanning said, would allow you to set challenges for friends. For example, you might tell Ellie she has to get her Warhammer Online character to level 30 and unlock all the Battlefield achievements by next weekend, and Nucleus would also allow you to tell your mutual friends that you had set this challenge.

Ellie could then delete you from her friends list.

Although EA didn't explicitly outline which formats are supported, the presentation included a game with Miis on-screen and PC, PS3 and 360 would seem a shoe-in. Expect to hear more about Nucleus soon.