Sims needs a competing game that offers something different.

A more adult oriented one would be cool, I don't mean pornographic I mean not having to deal with "woohoo" and "juice" bars.

Competition can also scare off the developer, think of what happened to Tony Hawk when they had to compete with EA Skate, which didn't really go anywhere after driving out the Tony Hawk franchise. Practically took a whole genre with them.