Japanese Developer Sheds More Light on Sony Censorship Scenario

Wow, that really IS pretty awful.

@NintendoFan4Lyf that might be the case but each prefecture in Japan also has a law that forbids sex with children under 18 so it's a tenuous argument that you make.

I would say that it's ridiculous of a Japanese company making Japanese developers censor their games in Japan because of Western sensibilities, but then I remembered SCE became SIE moved it's main headquarters from Tokyo to California, so the PlayStation division at least isn't quite as Japanese as it used to be.

Over sensitivity is running rampant here in America right now, I’m not surprised Sony wants to sift through game content with a fine tooth comb rather than have a possible scandal.

It's been said time and time again that PlayStation's more of an American company than it is a Japanese one at this point, and I think this is a direct result of that. If what the developer is saying is the truth, then the process seems heavy handed.

But like @Pamela says, I think as far as Sony and PlayStation are concerned, they'd much rather upset hardcore fans of Japanese games rather than be faced with some kind of scandal. We all know how volatile the current climate is on all sides, and with the PlayStation 4 being such a gigantic success worldwide, I suppose Sony's always going to look at the bigger picture.

Having said all that, I still don't necessarily like the idea of companies like PlayStation filtering media. Although a line does have to be drawn somewhere as far as 'adult' content goes, that line has to be clear, and to be fair, it had seemed clear for a long time. The biggest issue for me now is that it's gradually getting blurrier, and as mentioned, this "strict inspection" doesn't sound especially great for developers.

I just love it when companies that have nothing to do with the development process think they know better than the actual developers of a game. /s

Whao this is awesome all those sexy games belong on PC not on the play computer thing .

Bah, I don't really understand - l expect this from Nintendo (they changed many outfits in Bravely Second, Xenoblade Chronicles, Tokyo Mirage Sessions etc.) but with Sony I just expect them to put on a PEGI16 or something. I don't have the slightest interest in cleavage in games, believe me but it bugs me that for some reason gore in say, RDR2 or GOW is fine but some anime breast isn't...

Next stop T games will be disallowed, and then E10+, until all we're left with are EC rated games...

@ShogunRok
Just stop it. A game that 100K people care about in the States would hardly 'cause an issue' aside from the crybaby mainstream media like IGN. Nobody stopped buying PlayStations over some of these games before, they wouldn't now. This is garbage, plain and simple, and y'all know it. If Sony really wants to play hardball, patch out the 'offensive' nudity in Red Dead 2 and tell CD Projekt Red, today, that they need to start considering changes to Cyberpunk 2077. They won't do that because they don't have the guts. It would cause far more of a ruckus than IGN or Kotaku crying about something stupid like Trish's outfit in DMC V ever would. And those games from Rockstar and CDPR have more disgusting stuff in them than most of the Japanese games Sony is cowardly messing with. Nintendo and Monolith got tons of sh*t for Xenoblade 2 and that game set records for the franchise and hasn't hurt Switch sales. This is just a company caving to the paranoia of a few nutjobs and shouldn't be supported at all.

@get2sammyb
You're better than this too Sammy. So all female gamers, or anybody else offended, is suddenly excluded because there's a game that caters to a different audience? Maybe Sony should tell Sega the Yakuza franchise is no longer allowed on the system since just last year the creator of it said they're keeping the games male oriented since 80% of its player base is dudes... Normal people, which still do make up the majority, don't care if somebody likes something different than them as long as that hobby is not something like rape or murder.

@Ralizah
The worst part is the number of people defending this idiocy. One person defending it is one too many.

@Gamer83 Fanboys gonna fanboy. Nintendo fanboys made similar excuses when it was Nintendo censoring stuff. Although the Big N at least had the decency to leave third party content alone when they weren't publishing it.

🤦‍♂️They just fixed the cross play and now they are creating a new problem for themselves, oh well there has to be a new thing for internet right

This is disgusting. The history just repeating itself.

Now that PS4 is doing great and Sony is getting cocky again...

Not liking where this is going. It could affect a Persona or Yakuza game down the road.

Here’s my question, is it an AO title basically? Because that’s always been Sony, Nintendo, and MS’s policy to censor or forbid those. If that’s the case, it’s nothing new and you may as well stop gaming on anything but PC. I’m wondering if this is an overreaction. Again, I don’t know, but it sounds possible.

@Jaz007 No. Censoring porn games is business as usual for the console manufacturers. This is them clamping down hard on any kind of sexualized (or even mildly risque, based on some of these examples) content in Japanese media.

I guess now Japanese developers have to submit their Japanese games for "strict inspection" with the authoritarians undoubtedly infesting their new California headquarters. Having to do it in English is the real cherry on this humiliating sundae Sony has whipped up.

@Gamer83 You seem to think I'm defending Sony's decisions.

I cant understand why Sony is communicating with the studio in English and not Japanese??????

@Ralizah What is the game? It has an adults only rating in Japan it seems, but I’m not sure if it’s the same or not. And more than porn gets censored at that point. Manhunt 2’s violence was downed down because it originally got an AO rating.

@Ralizah But if that's the case why aren't games like SoulCalibur VI being jumped on by Sony? Is it because it'll actually sell compared to these incredibly niche games? Is it a case of Sony clamping down only on the stuff that it thinks will have no financial impact on PlayStation? This is what I don't get.

Say Dead or Alive 6 comes out as planned next year and the sexualisation has indeed been toned down, like they said it would be. But we all know those bikinis and skimpy dresses are coming, they're just gonna be DLC — it's inevitable. Will Sony allow it? If it's taking smaller devs like this to task, then you'd think Sony would move on that kind of thing as well, but I honestly don't see it happening.

@Jaz007 So, pretty much all of the violent AAA Western games that get M ratings in the States get the Japanese equivalent of an "AO" in Japan, called CERO-Z. You're not allowed to sell CERO-Z games to people under 18. Games such as Fallout, Hitman, The Last of Us, Gears of War, Tomb Raider, Grand Theft Auto, etc. etc.

Banning adult only games would mean banning most of the Western AAA market in Japan.

And the funny thing is that even when a game like Until Dawn was slapped with the CERO-Z rating, a lot of the violence in it was still censored.

@ShogunRok Yeah, I don't know if this is purely a crackdown on smaller publishers (which, honestly, would kind of vindicate NIS' bit awhile back about Sony "not caring about small publishers"), or the policy wasn't fleshed out enough at the time to make a difference with regard to SCVI, or what, but it's pretty clear this is going to impact a large number of games. We already know this new policy won't be implemented fairly (no way is Sony going to stand up to a company like Rockstar when the inevitable GTAVI inevitably features pretty extreme and even disturbing sexual content), so I could see this "policy" being used as an excuse to weed out the fanservice games releasing on the platform, even when it seems absent with regard to games from bigger publishers.

Targeting games like Senran Kagura in the West was surprising enough, but now it seems like Sony is going after Japanese games that feature what seems to amount to mild cheesecake. How else to explain the ways the pretty tame CGs in some of these visual novels are being altered for PS4?

If a title is over 18's and doesn't include outright dodgy content then Sony should leave well alone we as players don't need anymore nannying

Sony finally have a controversy that direct affects my preferred type of games. Will skip the PS5 at this rate.

Japan to begin with has a stricter law regarding what is allowed to appear on a medium, whether its a video/game/magazine/comic. Japan does not allow the exposure of a female's privates even on straight up pornography, whether it has real people or drawn/animated ones. This relates to the amount of fanservice that games in Japan are allowed to have as well, the exposure of nipples in breasts is not allowed on console games. They are always censored one way or the other, unlike western games which does allow this exposure on consoles.
All of this just means that what is happening here is very close to blatant racism, putting Japanese games on a strict watch, communicating only in English even though Sony is originally a Japanese company (even if it was not, I don't see any logic in being so rude as to not communicate on the language that your business partner speaks, very unprofessional).
Sony has devolved into bullying small Japanese developers to alienate them. They will most certainly start doing the same to bigger Japanese developers at this rate if nothing is done to stop them.

@Zepia
There is nothing to stop them. The new offices are in California. The world's home to hyper sensitivity regarding this stuff. It's one big echo chamber out there. I'll give my thoughts on stuff like this but I know the reality isn't hoping Sony changes and more just vote with the wallet. MS seems to be a little looser on the censorship stuff (at least to the point companies haven't b*tched about it in the press anyway) so I'll buy third party games there and depending how bad this issue gets with Sony I could skip PS5. I like their first party games but Japanese games are an even bigger reason I became a fan and now, for no reason whatsoever, aside from being out in ridiculous California, they're clamping down hard on these games.

@Gamer83 I'll be going PC, Xbox and Nintendo only at this rate.

Sony is clearly terrified that it will be the next entity to be accused of misogyny and sexual exploitation, which is a very real possibility given the current outrage climate and social media mob mentality going on of late (which shows no signs of letting up, probably because their demands have been caved into so many times) so I can understand Sony's stance. However, I don't think this is a good idea, as it sets a precedent for them when it comes to censoring - with the exception of virtual paedophilia of course, as I defo think the line should be drawn there - but I don't think anything else sexually explicit or boobified should be censored for mature rated games as it should be up to adults what they play.

Honestly, this whole situation is just getting ridiculous and feels, increasingly, like the newly minted US headquarters and new CEO trying their absolute hardest to scare away niche publishers and developers. They're willing to completely tank the PS Vita less than a year after a new CEO takes over, with all physical software and hardware production coming to a halt after this fiscal year, it's no wonder why there's an increasing sentiment of "I'll just bring it to Switch instead" among small/independent developers and publishers. Because, you know, alienating that market worked out AMAZINGLY in the early years of the PS3.

For the record, I don't -want- to assume this whole situation can be attributed to some malicious intent. Perhaps people are right. Perhaps this really is the reality of the market now, and the avoidance of controversy really is in the best interests of Sony and their customers. But given that Nintendo can let a third-party release a title like Senran Kagura : Shinobi Refle completely uncut, and ride out any and all controversy by just... ignoring it until it goes away, I really can't come to any other conclusion. I just can't.

@bbtothe From what I understand of the ongoing controversy - submissions got moved to the US with the rest of the headquarters. Presumably, now being staffed entirely in the US, they have no/limited Japanese speaking submissions staff, thereby meaning all communications will have to be in English unless they luck out and get to speak to a Submissions person who actually is able to understand Japanese.

Arrogant sony is back

@Kidfried
I'm against this kind of stuff because while it may start out with good intentions it always goes too far. Nintendo has done censorship stupidly in the past, so has Sony and now they seem to be taking it to every niche Japanese game. I couldn't give a rat's behind about Senran Kagura or whatever this game is or some of the others, but Yakuza, Devil May Cry, Dead or Alive 6, Sony will no doubt have their sights set on those as well.

@IBeAGamer
I'm sure Sony will release some first party stuff that will make it impossible for me to ever truly leave PlayStation behind for good. But at this rate, as I said earlier, PS5 won't be considered for a day one purchase (like it had been just a week and a half ago before all this nonsense came to light). I'd buy one used when games I care about start to hit and those games would be purchased used if used games are still a thing. In the meantime, MS has opened up its wallet for studios, time to start paying Japanese devs to bring some games over.

@Gamer83
I was actually thinking to myself, has this also affected RDR2? Have you seen any full nudity? Surprisingly for a Western you can't even use a brothel, censored or not. After GTA I was surprised.
Wonder if Cyberpunk will get away with as much as the Witcher 3 at this rate.

I'm guessing it's Sony moving their main headquarters to America that's causing this. Why are Americans so sensitive? And why does the rest of the world have to suffer because of one country? I thought we'd finally moved past the 90s in gaming.

This is very worrying as the Yakuza games are very close to the line would be a shame if the were censored as would lose some of its charm.

Sony to become the child/family friendly console that
Nintendo once was? Opening the door for a console aimed more for adults...

I am all for censorship of certain content - things bordering on child pornography and paedophilia for example but I also believe that games should be able to portray anything that you could expect from anything you see in a TV/movie - as long as its appropriately rated. If something isn't 'for you' then don't buy it - simple!! It annoys me that someone else decides what I can or cannot see in a video game (or movie).

As for being all inclusive, games like TV/Movies aren't going to appeal or be acceptable for 'everyone'. You aren't going to let a 8yr old watch Game of Thrones or American Pie so you don't let them have access to games with a similar content or age rating.

It’s true that this does probably open the door for these developers to prefer working with Microsoft and Nintendo instead. That’s just logical that they’ll take the path of least resistance in the future. It will probably be no big deal at first since these little games are not anything that 90+% of us will buy, but those developers will keep excluding Sony down the road and they may have some pretty good content that we miss.
I’m not saying I disapprove of Sony’s right to filter what appears on their console, but I’m just following this to a logical conclusion that it will limit Sony’s library in the future. It is a pretty difficult quandary to be in, I admit. It’s surely no fun trying to please all sides. I blame society and how messed up it is in general. 😉

I don't like this direction Sony is headed. Developers know what's best for their games, and customers can decide for themselves whether or not to buy it.

However, this situation seems worse than usual. If it is a Japanese game that already has an 18+ age rating in Japan, then why should they be getting asked strict questions in English?

@AyanamiReign
There is some nudity in RDR 2 but it's not like what was in GTA V. Still, that is more than what some of these fanservice games show. CDPR has said there's going to be sex scenes and full nudity in Cyberpunk, I'll be interested as well to see how that plays out given Sony's new policies.

@get2sammyb what if is it's something to do with the western ratings broad you know ESRB and PEGI, it is possible they have made changes that we don't know about and Sony are just adapting to those?

Really disappointing to hear. I hope as many people as possible tries to reach out to Sony about this.

Sony's been censoring ANYTHING with boobs. It isn't even aimed at questionable content anymore. Meanwhile Dream Daddy is fine. Did Sony change their headquarters to California or something?

Total non-issue, you're all getting wound up and righteous about nothing. Censorship? Meh, it's just business. You don't have a right to the artists original creation; the publisher or distributor is deciding what product will be sold, not the studio. Sony don't want to sell pervy crap anymore, get over it.

I should add that I'm a big fan of pervy crap btw. But I don't think Sony's choice over what goes into games it sells is an erosion of anyone's free speech or right to information.

@Kidfried
Yakuza 3 had the hostess clubs removed when it originally released way back in 2009 or 2010 so the precedence is already there for that series. I get your side of the argument as well, however, I've seen it too many times where some things that should be separate issues end up being anything but that. Start with something that most people would understand, get them on your side, then go crazy. That's what Sony is doing.

@get2sammyb
And I can understand getting rid of that content. Other stuff? Absolutely not, especially when games on the console allow you to do some horrible stuff to women in the game. There's also the fact a lot of women aren't bothered by some of this stuff. I know because I converse with them daily on the internet and in the real. The whole situation is ridiculous. We have a rating system, it's worked well and, again, normal people aren't going to feel alienated if a few games aren't made for them. They ignore those and choose one of the hundreds of other 'inclusive' games out there.

@get2sammyb
Yeah. It's interesting (and imo disappointing) times we have right now.

@Jriibz
From what I've been reading it seems to be a fairly new policy. Just hasn't had enough time to seep into other games. I doubt it'll ever effect a game which could have a negative impact, so Rockstar and CD Projekt Red and other big Western companies will be ok with what content they want to put in games. Things will get very bad for all Japanese games though, especially fan service ones. Soul Calibur 6 was too far into development and this policy too new for anything to happen there. But stuff coming out next year like DMC V? I'm fully expecting some big changes, to Trish in particular.

@Jriibz
She really wasn't. That get up she has is enough to annoy some people.

going back to the dark ages. This new policy will be a giant nail in the coffin and bury sony next to konami.

@Jriibz
Had to do research on that one because, like some of these other games, I don't care for Warriors Orochi. But apparently it's a simple explanation. For whatever reason the jiggle physics are tied to frames per second. So not censored just a bug, which is bizarre in itself. But there's your answer. Game isn't censored, for the same reason SC VI isn't. New policy introduced after the games were too far into development. We won't get the full picture until a year from now, but I see the way it's trending.

Here's the link to the article I found... https://www.dsogaming.com/news/warriors-orochi-4-boobs-physics-are-bugged-at-60fps-you-can-get-bouncing-boobs-by-locking-at-30fps/

To add, I don't think there needs to be a patch to 'fix' this like the writer suggested either. Devs can do what they want, Sony can do what it wants. I just don't like supporting a giant publisher bullying smaller devs into changing their content like Sony is doing all under the false guise of 'inclusion.' If they truly care about that, Rockstar and CDPR games along with Japanese games already on the system would be patched to take out the sexual content with nudity being at the top of the list and any future games from big Western studios would go through the same ridiculous nonsense the fan service games have to go through. Sony wants to go down this route, so be fair about it. Play the tough guy, try to bully Rockstar and see how that ends. Spoiler: It won't go over well. So the double standard will likely continue.

@FullbringIchigo Because this issue isn't affecting Nintendo in the slightest at present.

@Shepherd_Tallon
I mean, you can pick up a hooker, have her service you then kill her and get your money back in GTA. Is it parody? Sure, but some people still find it repulsive. I'm with you on if the characters are underage, that it's an obvious issue but my question would be, if that's the case how did these games get past the ratings board and Sony for all these years? There has to be more to the story. Right now the target seems to be these more niche Japanese games, but there's no doubt it'll expand to bigger ones and then maybe even some Western made games as well. I think the only companies who will be able to get by the censors with ease are Rockstar, CD Projekt Red, EA and Activision. Sony will not mess with those companies because they'd called quick. PlayStation fanboys are insane with how they will go out of their way to defend their corporate moth. However, Rockstar fanboys still make them look tame. That's one company that will not be bullied by any of the big 3.

@JoeBlogs
I didn’t know that.

Ridiculous, instead of developers being forced to change their vision, people who don't want a game with sexual content in should just simply not buy a game with sexual content in.