Natsume’s betting on one of its most popular and established series this year at E3 2009, Harvest Moon. Of the ten games being shown off, four are either entries in or spin-offs of the farming simulation. I guess it knows what its fans really want. The games are all Nintendo specific though, so Sony fans won’t be able to enjoy that virtual farming experience.

That isn’t all the company plans to show off though. It also is bringing a strategic RPG for the PSP, a few animal watching simulations, a cheerleading game, a tank puzzle title and a fishing simulation along as well. Since Natsume is known for sim games, it should come as no surprise that over half of the games presented can fall into that category.

Let’s see what they’ll have for us…

E3 2008 was an unmitigated disaster.

This singular sentence summed up the reaction that gamers felt towards this version of the long-running video-game based trade show. Once an event celebrated as much for its extravagance as its large variety of video games on display, the 2008 version of the Electronic Entertainment Expo, now known as the E3 Media & Business Summit, was a shadow of its former self, stripped of its style and verve which resulted in its popularity with gamers plummeting faster than the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The reason E3 lost its luster can be attributed to…