I think it would be a big hit! They might not be able to charge a premium price but no doubt they would make a killing with DLC, selling new events, animals, crops, locations, etc.

Online co-op farming

Achievements/trophies

Please make it happen!

I think there is talk of the PS1 game being on PSN. I don't know the details.

There is Rune Factory Oceans that was made for Wii but there is a PS3 version. That hasn't been released in Japan yet.

http://www.mmv.co.jp/special/game/runeoceans/

If you want online farming though there is the PC currently Japan only Harvest Moon game. I think Rune Factory 3 on DS has co-op for dungeons.

http://pc.bokumono.com/
http://www.gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=140753

I don't think Harvest Moon would be a huge success on Xbox360 and PS3 consoles. A lot of the games noted for on those consoles aren't in the same group as Harvest Moon games genre and gameplay wise. I can see a lot of the main owners of those consoles being put off the games based on graphic style alone. Might not be the case in Japan though.

Rune Factory PS3 is a step in the right direction but I was picturing more of an old-school Harvest Moon like Harvest Moon 64. Also, this is the kind of game that you can keep coming back to so a downloadable format would be better.

As for the audience, I think you're wrong. I don't know about PSN but casual games do extremely well on XBLA and the Xbox Live Indie Games channel. Peggle, A Kingdom of Keflings, Avatar Drop, Uno, etc. Probably the closest thing I can think of to Harvest Moon would be Miner Dig Deep and that's been a consistent seller since it was released 2 years ago. Almost all of these games would no doubt bomb hard as retail releases, but they push huge numbers as XBLA games.

I think Rune Factory on PS3 is a step in the wrong direction. Partly because of the of the fact Rune Factory has been solely on Nintendo consoles and any future Rune Factory game is probably going to be on 3DS.

There is a downloadable game on Wii. Not sure if it's come out yet over here yet. Harvest Moon My little Shop. There is also the VC one. The HM64 can't be released on VC due to issues with coding.

I was thinking for released game on disk format then downloadable to be honest. I wouldn't know what is good or bad on the downloadable services. I only seen my friends use it now and then.

My Little Shop looks awful! Doesn't even look like a HM game

Honestly, I haven't been able to get into any of the console Harvest Moons but I think a downloadable version would fix that because it's the kind of game you might only play for 5 mins at a time making it ideal to play between long sessions of serious gaming.

It just seems like a no-brainer to me. The series is milked with tons of sequels and spin-off on Nintendo systems and PSP and yet they ignore one of the biggest potential audiences.

Don't judge a book by it's cover. There is always the VC one anyway. It's not the N64 game unfortunately. I would like to get that one for download on Wii but they can't put the game onto VC for some reason...

I don't think there is a HM game you can just play for 5 mins. I know you can just play the game for 5 mins but you won't get that far.

The WIi and DS have the biggest gaming markets. Both Wii's HM Animal Parade and Tree of Tranquillity have appeared as games with a lot of game time put into them. Both were on the most played Wii games list.

Link: http://www.gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=114766 (I will try to find proper list of those games.)

A lot of HM fans will own a Wii. It would be a bigger risk to put a game solely onto PS3. Rune Factory Oceans was meant to be a Wii exclusive game.

Japan hates Xbox 360.

I put, probably, 150 hours into Friends of Mineral Town for GBA so I know how much time you can put into these games. Sometimes I would play them for hours at a time, but mostly, just 5-10 minute sessions - water the crops, feed the cow, call it a day, return to it when I have another chunk of time to waste.

I never said anything about exclusivity, just inclusion - no reason there can't be a wiiware version. Afterall, it's Nintendo platforms that keep the series alive. But I think if there is a Wiiware version, it shouldn't be made for Wiiware and ported to XBLA/PSN but made for XBLA/PSN and ported to Wiiware because if they're gonna do it at all they should do it right because the XBLA/PSN audience might not go for a cheap port as much as something that was tailor-made for the consoles.

And you're still totally underestimating the size of the potential market. We don't know exactly how big it is until it happens, you think it's small, I think it's huge. Surely, though, we can both agree that these kind of games can survive on mediocre sales numbers so it's at least worth the risk

I don't know. A play session for me on Harvest Moon is an entire day. Unless something happens where I have to save I prefer completing the day. I just don't find in a 5 min session that I had progressed enough to call it a play session.

I disagree entirely with it has to be made for one or the other then ported over stuff. If your going to make something multiformat it should be made for all consoles. It should be the EXACT same experience on all of them. Same for disk and cartridge versions of games. Even if there isn't room for it you could make free DLC for the missing content.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. A lot of bigger games have a lot of money and time put into them. Even if it is just a download game it would still need to sell enough to warrant the release. The Wii and DS potential market is just that much bigger. A lot of Wii and DS games also go alongside Harvest Moon games a lot better.

I guess play session can be totally subjective but c'mon surely even if you do prefer disk or cartridge based games you must at least be able to admit that this is the type of series that many people will appreciate having in downloadable form

As for potential markets, again, you're just totally underestimating the markets in question. This might be the kind of thing where you need to have experience with the platforms in order to grasp because for me it seems so soooooooooo obvious - an XBLA HM game has huge seller written all over it. Addictive, casual games, preferably with online co-op are huge on these services. Look at Peggle, Plants vs Zombies, Castle Crashers, Avatar Drop, Uno, A Kingdom of Keflings, etc. Many of these games push over a million units sold and that's because they're fun to play, easily accessible, and easy to come back to.

And if it's made, obviously it should be the same as it can be for all platforms because nobody wants the inferior experience. I'm talking about a game with the perspective and gameplay of Mineral Town, with either 3D or HD 2D graphics, with DLC expansion and online co-op in mind.

Make the game for Wiiware and you have to design the game around the 50 meg limitation that Nintendo imposes on the service. That means that even if Wii can handle higher quality assets, the game will be designed with low-quality assets in order to meet this restriction. Port that game over to XBLA/PSN and it will look like ass and gamers will complain. Upgrade it to meet XBLA/PSN standards and it will cost loads of money which Marvelous is probably not willing to spend.

It's much easier and cost-effective to make the game in HD for XBLA/PSN, and scale down so that it meets Wiiware restrictions.

There already is. Harvest Moon (VC) and the Shop (Wiiware) one...

I don't put Harvest Moon in the same category as those games...

If it was really easy to downscale there would be a lot more games on Wii and they wouldn't miss out on some features. This is why if they were to do it they would have to make it with all consoles in mind. Instead of the usual lets make it for one or the other...

I don't think you will see a XBLA version though. Japan hates Xbox.