The much loved Harvest Moon 64 never got a PAL release and it seems it will never get a Virtual Console release either.

While Harvest Moon titles have come out on many consoles over the years Harvest Moon 64 has been lauded by some as one of the best in the series. However, while the title was translated and released in America and Australia it never reached European shores and it seems gamers hoping they'd be able to play it through the Virtual Console will be similarly disappointed.

Speaking to Nerd Mentality Natsume's Vice President of Operations Graham Markay stated that the company have looked into releasing it on the Virtual Console but it seems it will be nigh on impossible.

It will not. It will not. And it's not from lack of trying. Unfortunately, the code of the game is not... it's not an easy transfer. It would be really time-consuming and long, and we've looked into it, and we've tried to see if there's any way around certain things, but the conversion to virtual console, it's just... I shouldn't say it's never going to come out, but there's just a really, really, very small chance that it would ever come out. Which is unfortunate because we know that for a lot of dedicated, die-hard fans, that's their favorite.

Mr. Markay also discussed the parallels between the Harvest Moon franchise and the popular Facebook game Farmville. He noted that years ago Natsume had a hard time trying to sell the farming-game premise but now 81 million people are playing it. When asked if the company are considering adding a social element to the title he stated that it is something the company is interested in and has begun implementing with Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar.

It would seem that European fans of the series will not be able to get their hands on Harvest Moon 64 but Natsume are frequently releasing new games in the franchise to ease the pain.