April

 The Sims 4 will be exclusive for mobile devices! In an exclusive discussion with EA, The Sims Wiki was informed that The Sims 4 will be made exclusive to iOS, Android and Blackberry devices and will forgo a PC release.

Lucy Bradshaw, the General Manager at Maxis said to us, "The mobile platform has been very successful for EA in its entirety and we want to bring the best possible experience for The Sims to mobiles and for that, we have decided to ship The Sims 4 exclusively on the iOS, Android and Blackberry platforms."

"I understand that some of our PC player base may be disappointed but we at Maxis can assure you that we want to provide the best possible experience for our players and we feel this is the right decision. There was a unanimous decision within both EA and Maxis to shift development to mobiles and we feel it is going to be great. Those who have already pre-ordered will still be getting the same great experience, including more intelligent Sims and the new emotions system, only in the palm of their hands." added Bradshaw.

When asked if The Sims 4 would embrace the microtransaction model that is common with mobile games, Bradshaw replied, "Absolutely. We feel that microtransactions are a great way of pushing new content to players quickly and efficiently. The practice has gone down very well with our focus group. You can buy new content, you can bail out your Sims when they are out of cash, you can send content to your friends. We feel this will be very well received by the players who love The Sims."

To conclude our exclusive interview, Bradshaw revealed that The Sims 4 would be an online-only, multiplayer experience. "I know that we said The Sims 4 would be an offline, single player experience back when we announced the original version but we have learned that keeping the game online will be a much better move for both the developers and the players. The game will be an online-only multiplayer experience at its heart and we feel this is The Sims as players have always wanted it. We cannot wait to release this in Fall 2014 to our players!"

As a courtesy to the community of The Sims Wiki, both Lucy Bradshaw and EA Executive Chairman, Larry Probst, will be holding a Q&A that everybody who reads this wiki is invited to and you can get involved [ by clicking here].

Be sure to ask any questions you may have. Enjoy!