Time

Time is a feature of all The Sims games except The Sims Social. In general, there is a 12 or 24 hour clock, three speed settings (Normal, Fast and Ultra), and a Pause button which stops the clock. Some games allow the player to switch between the 12-hour and 24-hour clock.

The Sims
In The Sims, time is fairly simple. Bills come every three days, but that is the only cycle; there are no days of the week. Sims go to work or school every day, unless the player prevents them from going.

Time only passes on a residential lot when it is being played, so each household has its own time. When Sims visit a community lot, time on their home lot stops, so Sims can spend hours or even days on community lots and return home shortly after they left.

Inviting Sims at or after midnight will always cause them to refuse regardless of relationship level, the exception to this is The Urbz: Sims in the City.

In The Sims for consoles and Free Play mode The Sims Bustin' Out, time works the same as in The Sims. However, when playing Bustin' Out in Bust Out mode, time passes time passes on all lots as it does in The Urbz: Sims in the City. I have read that in Supernatural you can change the time using a cheat.

The Sims Bustin' Out for Handheld
Time seems to function as it did in other The Sims games.

Time affects when the buildings can be entered, when Mini-games can be played, and where a Sim would be at. It is the first game to record the days that have passed, which was later added in The Sims 3 and The Sims Medieval. Many areas in The Sims Bustin' Out change music between day and night though some areas such as the Jail and the Pizzeria don't change music between time periods.

The Urbz: Sims in the City
PS2, Xbox and Gamecube

Time in The Urbz: Sims in the City is the same as the other The Sims games, except that time passes for the entire city regardless of which Urb you are playing as. This was later seen in The Sims 3 and The Sims Medieval.

As in The Sims and The Sims Bustin' Out, there are no weeks in The Urbz: Sims in the City.

Unlike other The Sims games, Urbz such as Scary Mary will never refuse if the player invites them after midnight but they will however if the player has a -40 relationship with that Urb.

Midnight parties always occur at 12:00 AM (0:00) and Villians will arrive at 1 PM (13:00).

Unlike The Sims for consoles and The Sims Bustin' Out, time cannot be controlled with the Pause and Fast buttons while playing in two-player mode.

GBA and DS
Unlike the console versions of The Urbz, time is very important in these versions. Like Bustin' Out, it affects what mini-games can be played, what objectives can be completed and what area Urbz are at (Note: In the DS version, Urbz might be at a different area than in the GBA version). It uses a week-based system similar to The Sims 2 and The Sims Stories although this can only be seen from the Load/Save game screen. The default day and time is Monday 10:00 AM.

The game also keeps track of how many days has passed. A majority of areas in The Urbz: Sims in the City have different music at day and night though some areas such as the King Tower, Jail and Club Xizzle do not change music.

The Sims 2 and The Sims Stories
Time is now divided into seven-day weeks. This affects work and school schedules; students have weekends off, and Sims with jobs have scheduled days off. Bills are delivered every Tuesday and Thursday. The exceptions to this are The Sims 2: University (in college sub-neighborhoods) and The Sims Castaway Stories.

As in The Sims, trying to invite Sims after midnight will always cause them to refuse regardless of relationship level. Also time only passes on a residential lot when it is being played, and time on a Sim's home lot stops when he or she visits a community lot. Time continuity in community lot is only featured in the college community lots in The Sims 2: University and vacation community lots in The Sims 2: Bon Voyage. Time actually passes when Sims arrive home from community lots.

At college there are no days of the week, only three-day semesters, and bills come every three days as in The Sims. Also, the number of hours left in a semester is tracked separately from the time-of-day clock, and this timer does not stop on college community lots.

In The Sims 2: Seasons, there are four seasons, each of which lasts five days.

In Castaway Stories, instead of the normal 12 or 24 hour clock, there are 8 orbs with each one representing 3 hours. Daylight lasts 15 hours (5 orbs), while night lasts 9 hours (3 orbs).

The Sims 2 console games
The Sims 2 console games are different from The Sims 2 and The Sims Stories. Most of them (Except Pets) are the same as The Urbz and The Sims.

The Sims 2
Except for the PSP version, there are no weeks, as there are in The Sims 2 and The Sims Stories. Time is similar to previous games although this varies by version.

Console versions
Unlike the Windows version of the game, The Sims 2 on consoles has no week feature. Unlike The Urbz, but like The Sims 2 and The Sims Stories, time only passes for the current family. However, in Story Mode, time passes on all lots.

The ability to control time in two-player mode, which was removed in The Urbz, is restored. While either player can pause the game, game time will only be sped up while both players are holding the appropriate control (R, RT or R1).

GBA
The GBA version is same as The Urbz but since it uses episodes rather than being an open world as Bustin' Out and The Urbz did, Time is not the same between episodes. In most episodes, the time starts at 10:00 AM

DS
Like The Sims FreePlay, it uses the real time feature which runs off the DS clock. Unlike FreePlay, it does not use the week feature making this similar to its predecessor.

PSP
Unlike the other versions of the game, the PSP version uses the week feature which is the first console game to truly use weeks.

The Sims 2 Pets
Pets adds the week feature which was introduced in The Sims 2 and The Sims Stories. This is also the first non-handheld console game to implement weeks.

As in The Sims 2 and The Sims Stories, time only passes on a residential lot when it is being played, and time on a Sim's home lot stops when he or she visits the Town Square.

The Sims 2 Castaway
As in most console games based on The Sims 2, there are no weeks in Castaway. Whenever a Sim goes to a different area, a short amount of time, usually 15 minutes, will pass. Time is measured by where to sun or moon is in the sky on a small graphic found next to the Sim's icon. When it is daylight, the sun will be used and the background will be light blue. When it is nighttime, the moon will be used and he background will be dark blue. The sun/moon moves gradually across the mini sky to show what point in the day it is.

The Sims 3 and The Sims Medieval
Time now passes for the entire Town. Similar to The Urbz: Sims in the City, all Sims share the same time regardless of what Sims you are playing as.

The clock is the same as in earlier games, but there is a new speed setting. "Speed 4" Ultra-speeds through the current interaction. The Fast and Ultra speed settings are much, much slower than they were in previous games, causing annoyance for some players who dislike the long wait for their Sims to finish working or sleeping. In the original The Sims 3, Fast and Ultra speed also ran slower but this was fixed in 1.2.7.

Whenever a game is started in The Sims 3 and The Sims Medieval, the first day is Sunday and it will be Week 1, Day 1.

In World Adventures, there are no weeks while in Shang Simla, Champs Les Sims, and Al Simhara. This means that week-based events, such as weekly payments from Professions, Weekly Book Earnings, etc., won't occur. Some events such as receiving free items will still occur. Birthdays and Work will not be missed so Workaholics will not be effected by holidays.

The Sims 3 and The Sims Medieval keep track of days since the town was started. Mousing over the time will show how many days have passed since the town was started.

The Sims 3 for 3DS
Time works like The Sims 3 but there is some differences. Time pauses at the home lot whenever a Sim goes to a Community Lot and this version does not record days.