News

New Trailer and Screens Illustrating Mermaids, Explorations and More for Summer Expansion Pack

The Sims 3 Island Paradise is on the horizon! With this summer’s hottest offering releasing next week, The Sims Studio reveals today the never before seen trailer that captures all the fun in the sun moments that await players this tropical world.

With mermaids, monsters, shark attacks, underwater woohoo and so much more, The Sims 3 Island Paradise delivers hysterical and horrific gameplay moments that are sure to leave your Sims yearning for their next adventure.

And if this trailer whets your appetite for more The Sims 3 Island Paradise, be sure to tune into The Sims Live Broadcast tomorrow, June 18 at 10AM PDT featuring a live demo of the game’s underwater features. Plus a new team member from The Sims 4 will be joining to discuss the inspiration behind the creation of the newest Sims coming in 2014. Visit www.thesims.com/live to watch.

The Sims 3 Island Paradise is currently available for pre-order and drops anchor in retail stores and for digital download on Origin.com on June 28 2013. Players who pre-order will receive the Limited Edition version of the game that comes with the Island Survival Pack – a new set of content that equips your Sims with the necessities to scrape together an existence on a deserted island. As an added challenge, if 4,000 copies of The Sims 3 Island Paradise are ordered on Origin, everyone who pre-ordered before June 21 will automatically receive The Sims 3 Barnacle Bay!

Mayors! SimCity Update 5, which focuses on multiplayer and multi-city fixes and improvements, releases this Tuesday:

Hi Mayors – below you'll find the notes that are in development for Update 5.0.

Update 5 is focused on improvements to Multiplayer and Multi-city Play
• New: Historic Price charts for Global Market resources are available from the SimCity World button on the main menu.
• New: The Region Wall chat has been completely updated with a new look and new functionality! Chat functions more efficiently and it’s much easier to communicate with other players. Time stamps show on chat messages on rollover. Regional events are easier to read and can be toggled on and off.
• New: Added a filter for friends’ regions in the join region section.
• New: Trading control. Added feature to give players more control over their utilities. Players can now choose whether or not to keep their power, water, or sewage local. This setting can be found on the information panel accessible by clicking on the power plant, water tower, or sewage pipe or plant. Sharing with the region is on by default.
• New: Regional Missions: Added seven new regional missions: Drink It Up!, Plug In, So Stoked, The Wheels on the Bus, Ferry Dust, Station to Station, and Riding Coach.
• New: Regional Achievement: Added a new regional achievement, Field Trip!
• Gifting Improvements: Cash gifts are now delivered electronically, not by truck. This should improve the efficiency of gifting.
• Resource gifts: Resource gifts will happen more reliably. Multiple trucks can make deliveries at once if they are available in the sending city and the truck capacities have been increased.
• Great Works Improvements: Delivery trucks will mark their resources as dropped off as soon as they reach the Great Works, instead of when they arrive back in the city. This will make tracking time more reliable.
• Great Works Improvements: Update to have all resources at Great Works handled at the regional level. This will address players in different cities seeing different resources once the server has processed the region and cities.
• Great Works Improvements: Fixed an issue where an Arcology would maintain power from the region and fixed an issue where shoppers would not increase at the Arcology as it was leveled up. This will update in both existing and new Arcologies.
• Great Works Improvements: Tuned the Solar Farm.
• Regional Unlocks: The advanced coal mine unlocks regionally. Fixed issue where the Trade HQ sometimes did not unlock.
• Fire Advisor Trading clarity: Tuned the Fire advisor so they do not tell you that neighbors are sending fire trucks when your neighbor has no fire stations.
• Trading: School buses that travel from a neighbor’s city will show that city’s avatar.
• Regional Commuting: Fixed an issue where Sims would not be able to take transit out of cities with lots of streetcars or shuttle buses. This could cause some cases where commuting Sims could not return home and their homes would go abandoned.
• Garbage Trucks and Recycling Trucks: Fixed an issue that some cities experienced where garbage and recycling trucks do not leave their buildings or disappeared when trading service with neighbors. Existing cities who have trucks that have disappeared will have to demolish their missing trucks’ garages and plop new garages.
• Text Clarification: The “Out of Money” message now says “Can’t find work” when appropriate in rollover feedback and the approval rating UI. This is to clarify your Sims’ actual need. 

Mayors – today we are announcing the Mac version of SimCity has moved its release date from June 11 and will now be available digitally worldwide in August.

Learn more about the Mac version and future PC updates from Senior Producer Kip Katsarelis: http://bit.ly/11vb6yg

That is quite a delay. I guess I should be happy I run Bootcamp as well.

SimGuruTaterTot just tweeted about what's coming to the store. It appears to be a mix between a farm living room and a beachy house? Lol. Either way I can't wait to see more of this.

What's coming to the Store in less than 24 hours?

With summer around the corner, and Island Paradise a few weeks away, coastal living is on everyone's mind...

Just imagine what this would look like on a House Boat!