The Sims development team announced earlier today that The Sims will be integrated into Amazon Alexa devices as The Sims Alexa Skill, and is scheduled to launch next week. 

This new feature is pretty neat, and it's another example of how developers are continuing the trend of integrating software into their games that enables Alexa Skill (voice activated AI) interactivity in different ways. 

The announcement was made during the Maxis Monthly livestream, which gives players a sneak peak into future content for the game.

The software is slated to allow players to play Sims trivia, listen to Sims music, and learn more about the franchise through Alexa. 

A community manager for The Sims has clarified a few points regarding the new software, saying that it will be released for free worldwide (but not for all languages) next week, and that this is a "passion project," of a few developers on the team.

This is in response to some backlash the Sims team has received from players voicing their concerns about The Sims 4. It's worth pointing out that harassing developers over their work is not a good way to engage with them when asking questions about content. 

"The development of this does NOT take away from development for The Sims 4," the dev continues. "If the devs did not create this, it does not mean you would have gotten something else for TS4."