Following our earlier story that Spore developer Chris Hecker had gone on record calling the Wii a "piece of shit" as well as accusing Nintendo of numerous other things, Hecker has come out today to officially apologize for his harsh words.

“I don't know who has read the internet, yesterday. In a [unintelligible] panel I said a bunch of things. I was trying to be thought provoking and entertaining and fun and a lot of the stuff went too far over the top on the entertaining and fun side, so that it was no longer thought provoking, just inflammatory. And in the process I hurt a bunch of people I care about. And so, I want to apologize now.

When I'm on stage, I'm me. I'm talking talk from me. From me. I'm not representing EA or Maxis. I want to make two things perfectly clear.

I do not think the Wii is a piece of shit. Nintendo needs to be applauded for trying to interface on the controller front, the user interface front, on making games accessible, on making a console that you don't need to mortgage your house to afford.

Secondly, it's totally obvious, and I'm sorry that I implied otherwise, that everyone at Nintendo is passionate at making great games. Some of the games give me hope that we will be seen as an art form on par with movies and books."