casualgaming.biz has had an interview with associate producer Grant Rodiek.
This interview addresses many things, in particular this article discusses the female fanbase and female members of the development team of The Sims 3.
“We have a large female presence throughout our team – more than the typical game development team. Obviously we don’t have a design document titled ‘Sims for Females’, but it’s something we always have on our minds.”

Rod Humble has given another interview, this time to Joystiq, talking about the success of The Sims franchise and what in store for the future. It however does not bring any new info about The Sims 3.
  “The Sims 3 features a brand new engine that has been in development for nearly three years. The initial feature-set unveiled includes the new seamless, open neighborhood, new Create-A-Sim, new realistic personalities and new unlimited customization. The Sims 3 will launch globally in 2009.”
View Interview 

UK internet site MCV has two interesting interview with Nancy Smith, Director of the Sims brand and Rod Humble, Creative Director of the Sims. It includes information on the history of The Sims and The Sims 3.
“I think there is a lot more ‘gamer-ness’ in The Sims 3,” said Humble. “The team has added a lot more challenge and depth for gamers.”
Read Nancy Smith’s Interview
Read Rod Humble’s Interview

From an Interview with Belgiums PC Gameplay, an interview with Lindsay Pearson.
 Which Sims 2 elements will find their way to Sims 3?
Some elements were selected from the start because they fit into the core experience of The Sims 3. Fishing for example is one of the expansionfeatures that made it to an important skill in Sims 3. 
There’s also a Creativity skill, only this time it’s based on the guitar instead of the piano.
The Sims is concidered an interactive soap. How will you lift this to a higher level in The Sims 3?
The seamless Nhood is a huge step forward. The player will be able to go into the Nhood and adjust all inhabitants. For example, if you want to model your Nhood to The Sopranos or Desperate Housewives, then you can adjust all inhabitants til they are just like those people. And then the game takes over and you become part of that world. So it’s actually much more then a TV-series since things happen out of your control.
Will The Sims 3 contain multiple Nhoods?
No, there’s only 1 Nhood, but then it’s extremely large – More then 90 houses, each inhabited by a Simfamily. But you can save the Nhood into different slots so that you can create multiple storylines. 
Probably later, we will make tools available so you can create your own Nhood, but at release, your stuck with just one Nhood.
Are there certain scenerios you can choose?
Well, you can choose from very diverse families which will all create a seperate storyline. If you want to play with a family that has 2 children at the start, it will be an entirely different experience then if you choose a single adolescent who’s at the start of his career.
Can you tell some more about the Customization options?
With an integrated editor, you can adjust every object, from walls to furniture to fashion and hairstyles. You can create colors and patterns and then use it on all objects. If you want a sofa with zebra motif with purple stripes, then that’s perfectly possible. Then you can also use that pattern on your bed or reading lamp. 
Also in CAS, you have more control about the looks, clothes, hair, etc. and you can share these creations easily with other players. If you can design cars? Well you can change the colorpattern but if you want to add silly things on your car, get Spore.
Do you use Sims 2 technology?
No, we created a completely new engine with new animation and rendering technology because that was the only way to realize the lively Nhood and extensive designtools. The engine for Sims 2 was good for what it was meant for, but to implement the Sims 3 features, it was insufficient. 
The biggest work was done in the last year. About system requirements, we can’t give those yet ofcourse but we do want to make the game available for a very wide audience.
The visual leap between Sims 2 and Sims 3 seems smaller then between Sims 1 and 2. Does this have anything to do with the – probably demanding – Nhood element?
Partly yes. However the screenshots give a somewhat distorted image, because when you see the Sims 3 live at work, you immediately notice the high detail in the world and its characters. But yes, the Nhood element with its hundreds of inhabitants who all live out a life simultaneously, forced us to make a trade-off between speed and graphical detail. Because of this, we can’t make the huge leap forward as with the Sims 2. However a leap from 2D to 3D is always hard to surpass.