The next Sims game seems to be already mixing it up from the previews. I'm on the fence on it. The Sims in its current form is now more interested with being a leisure game about doing extraordinary, fantastical crap like going to the future, going into outer space, and trying to be popular/movie star/whatever stupid popular bullshit at the moment than an actual life simulation. You know what my reaction to that is? Oh well, at least I have Sims 2. So I don't really care.
In any case, I"m going to play Yakuza 3, another game I passed up when it came out because it was the same setting doing the same stuff.