I was just looking at Harvest Moon 3DS this weekend, skipped it and bought Tales of Abyss + Devil Survivor Overclocked for 3DS, is this the same game (I read it was not as customizable and flexibile in terms of what you can do as the older games)?

Well, never played the first 3DS game - which was just the DS game ported over. Last one I played was Island of Happiness

But... the main selling point of this game is customization, so I believe this is the most customizable Harvest Moon of all time. Even the game's catch phrase is something like "Customization is King".

These are the game's new things

New Gameplay features in A New Beginning include:

• The ability to customize your farm and the surrounding towns (deciding where certain buildings go/look like)
• A customizable main character.
• The ability to change your hairstyle by going to the hairdresser.
• The ability to gain new clothes by going to the tailor.
• You will date the bachelor/bachelorette that you're after first. You'll give them a ring, and you will start to date them. The Blue Feather is still used to propose, like most traditional Harvest Moon games.
• Honeymoons and vacations with your family to various places.
• Two new crop species are available: cacti and cotton.
• Pets such as cats and dogs get fat if not cared for properly.
• Being able to ride in a panda car!
• Only two Harvest Sprites are available. For the first time, a female Harvest Sprite, called Alice - and her younger brother (who shares the same birthday as her), a red-wearing sprite named Sokura.
• Insted of buying furniture and buildings, you buy instructions and then bulild them yourself if you have the material required.

^Other than that, the video says something about two new animals

The Lhama and the Yak - for both milk and wool

Has this been posted already? 

Mad Catz Developing Wii U Controller With Offset Joysticks

Now where have I seen that before...

The shape is the same as their Modern Warfare 2 controller for the Xbox 360, but with other colors

@ryan: a new Contra would be so welcome!

Are you serious? A controller is a thing, while the online is a service.

Think of it like a recipe (the controller) and a restaurant (the online): you can copy a recipe and get a product that looks and tastes almost the same as the original, but you can't make a restaurant from the ground and expect it to work and deal with consumers the same way that another restaurant that was founded years ago.

There are many things that can only be learned by experience. Microsoft knows them and Sony is still learning. Nintendo will need time to get to the same point.

What makes the online work or not is not in the console. They can't buy a PS3, put the same wireless on a WiiU and voila!, a perfect online experience for WiiU users.

What they need to learn has more to do with tings like, how many servers do I need in X country to give a good online without going bankrupt? What about creating servers for noobs and pros? How do I control the traffic to avoid cheaters? What do I need to protect my own servers and my customers' data from hackers/data thiefs? Etc.

Nintendo can hire people/Co. to either show them how to do some of those things or just to do them, but in the end it requires practice. And only time gives that.

I know I'm a bit late to the party but Grats on 3k posts! you're doing a great job Ryan ;)

edit: BUAHAHAHA just saw the poll lol

Thanks for the last story about The Last Story.