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The Urbz: Sims in the City: Difference between revisions
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==Development==
Development for ''The Urbz'' started in late 2000, when ''The Sims'' was considered a success. However, due to staff issues, development of ''The Urbz'' was delayed
''The Urbz'' was also intended to be the first ''The Sims'' game released for consoles, but Edge of Reality released the console port of ''The Sims'' earlier. ''The Urbz'' was the second ''The Sims'' title not to be released on Windows or Mac OS X.▼
Ports to the {{WP|PlayStation Portable}}, {{WP|Dreamcast}} and PC were planned, but development of these ports was later cancelled due to poor sales. The PlayStation Portable port was slated to release in 2005, but got cancelled due to poor sales. According to some images found on a beta website in 2008, the game would've had a similar gameplay resolution to ''The Sims 2: Pets'' and ''The Sims 2: Castaway''.▼
Ports to the {{WP|PlayStation Portable}}, {{WP|Dreamcast}} and PC were planned, but development of these ports were cancalled due to varoius reasons. Development for the Dreamcast was cancelled due to the ill-fated discontinuation of the console in Spring 2001.
▲''The Urbz'' was intended to be the first ''The Sims'' game released for consoles, but Edge of Reality released the console port of ''The Sims'' earlier. ''The Urbz'' was the second ''The Sims'' title not to be released on Windows or Mac OS X.
▲
==Differences between The Urbz and other titles==
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*''The Sims 2'' for console borrows many resources from The Urbz, such as animations, objects and sounds.
== Cancelled
The Urbz was also intended to start a spin-off subseries for The Sims franchise, so it could give Electronic Arts more profit. There would even be merchandising, including product placements and even figurines that were originally sold when the game came out.
Sadly, the half-developed sequel got cancelled due to poor sales of the video game, which only sold 2.4 million out of 5.0 to warrant a sequel. Because of this, all future sequels and franchise plans for the subseries would be cancelled.
=== The Urbz 2 ===
The Urbz 2 started development in the summer of 2004, about a few months after The Urbz was originally revealed by Electronic Arts. It would've introduced new features, such as online play, multistory housing, children, and been released on PlayStation 2, GameCube, and even Xbox consoles in 2005.
The plot for The Urbz 2 took place directly after the first game, when the player's Urb got famous in Urbzville. It would've taken place when the Urb moves to SimCity (With the city itself actually making an appearance) and they find themselves without money or fame. Luckily, the player's Urb is offered a place to stay, and they need to get enough money and rep to make themselves famous again.
This game also would've featured a plot, involving [[Daddy Bigbucks]] trying to buy out the city with [[Jayde]] (who would've made her actual appearance as a character) working as the sidekick. It also would've featured characters from the [[The Urbz: Sims in the City (handheld)|handheld game]] such as [[Dusty Hogg]] and [[Nora Zeal-Ott]]. Characters from the first game (including The Black Eyed Peas, which would've lent some of their musical scores to the game) would've made an appearance there, too.
Also, several locations old and new would've made an appearance in the game which would've had multiple stories, subway entrances, clothing/furniture stores and workable jobs just like the original game.
Due to poor sales of the game, the game got cancelled around December 2004 and the project was turned into what would later be [[The Sims 2 (console)|The Sims 2 for consoles]]. As the game had to be closer to the Windows counterpart, several features like the XAM, workable jobs and furniture/clothing stores were all removed.
Features like Online Play were removed due to declining usage of ''[[The Sims Online]]'' and ''[[The Sims Bustin' Out (console)|The Sims: Bustin Out's]]'' Online Weekend and certain technological problems with the new engine. Even though it was scrapped from The Urbz 2 project, it was considered to bought onto The Sims 2 for consoles during development, but it was decided not to.
Although, an in-house LAN test was done and worked perfectly, which explains several features relating to server data in the PlayStation 2's code.
Other features like children and multistory housing were removed due to technical limitations, even though references to them can be found in the files.
Even though ''The Urbz 2'' was completely cancelled, a lot of things were reworked. Characters like [[Candi Cupp]], [[Felicity Usher]], and [[Betty Buttercup]] were originally characters from ''The Urbz 2'' before they were redesigned. Also, locations like [[8 Rockpile Rd]], [[Jugen House]] and [[HMS Amore]] were originally from the project even though very few things changed in the locations like the removal of multiple stories (Jugen House originally had 5 floors) and subway entrances.
As an "apology" to developers and other staff for wanting another Urbz game, a few references like a portrait and a EyeToy filter of Jayde were added in.
Through the files of The Sims 2 for consoles, tons of leftovers from The Urbz can be found, ranging from textures, XAM ringtones, and even some NPC thumbnails.
==Trivia==
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