nnnnnnn this was the first thing I thought when I read the thread title. His character design is just so beautiful

I have the worst sarcasm detector on planet Earth, but given your avatar and sig I'm gonna take a shot in the dark and say this isn't entirely a serious statement? :P

You mean you weren't being completely straight with me in your first post?

yus! cannae wait to pick this one up
except i left my switch in Europe for the summer ... :/

Fates was the same. Nothing surprising and nothing wrong with some "inclusivity".

Wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo started this over the Tomodachi Life controversy, but I think the series is better with it's inclusion.

I think Tomodachi may have been a part of it, but for Fire Emblem in particular, it seems like Nintendo is starting to get more in touch with a certain Western culture around anime that enjoys the shipping and fanservice end of things. Try looking up fan fiction for anime-style games sometime. For some IPs, it becomes actually difficult to find heterosexual relationships in fan fiction, because the culture around these games loves to ship same sex relationships. I'm not part of the LGBTQ community, so I won't get much out of this unless I were to make a female avatar for the hell of it, but I do like the shipping and fanservice end of Fire Emblem, so I appreciate the dating sim-like elements that have become standard for the modern FE games. As such, I'd get more enjoyment out of NPC-NPC same sex pairings than Avatar-NPC same sex pairings. If Nintendo ever starts that, our part of the FE fandom's takeover of the series will be complete, muahaha.

That said, I imagine the LGBTQ community makes up a larger portion of FE's audience than they do of the general population, so I'm not surprised if Nintendo is trying to cater to them a bit with this.

Yeah, I'm thinking that fanservice and a cross-pollination of tropes due to the series merging with anime are the main driving factors here, more than any political considerations. 

I'm not gay either, or even inclined to buy the game to be honest, (it's just not my cup of tea) but if its inclusion makes some people happy, then it's a good thing in my book.

I just hope they don't shoehorn kids into this. It made sense in Awakening, but was really out of place in Fates. And while I would have probably gone with the girl on girl love interest, I didn't want to lose out on a unit for it.

Yeah I took this to mean that kids are definitely deconfirmed. Though it would have been cool to see the next generation of students at the same school their parents went to, now taught by their parents. But yeah, losing a unit would be extremely lame, so I'd only want kid units if they made sense and didn't make you feel like you were forced into hetero relationships if you wanted the full content of the game. Perhaps adoption? Like they could pair up before a timeskip, and after the timeskip the couples would each adopt a kid that would inherit certain skills under the logic that their parents taught them the skills, or something. This way there's still something of the parents that shows up in their kids, but any couple could have those kids regardless of sex so there's no incentive to choose same or opposite sex couples.

Nintendo of Japan has made a statement on the matter, translated here

https://gonintendo.com/stories/340410-nintendo-shares-a-statement-with-japanese-audiences-on-the-same-s

"In Fire Emblem Three Houses, it is possible for the Protagonist to have same-sex relationships with certain characters. However, we cannot explain this topic in more detail as to not ruin the excitement of all users who are looking forward to it.
Regarding character raising, we have prepared a lot of options, so please kindly anticipate it."