Sony Underfire in Renewed PS4 Censorship Row

i don't get it, if they don't censor these things they get called out on it, if they censor them, they get called out on it

how can they win?

If this is true then how the hell did SoulCalibur VI remain unchanged?

Super Seducer was just a cheesy game which made fun of itself. Its not just kids who play the consoles yet Sony feels some kind of moral obligation to stop certain games or ask for changes. There are plenty of games which have questionable content yet they are released with question.

Sony needs to the wake the hell up. They were all for it years ago. Nintendo was against it, and now they allow it. Sony is now against it. But Sony is totally up for people blowing each other to bits, showing blood, guts and people dying. But sexual content.. THATS where they draw the line.. Really? Hard to like Sony at this point for me.(Yes, I play these niche games)

@FullbringIchigo Don't censor it. There'll always be people who cry about it. But in the end gaming is a wide and diverse lake to plunge into. If you don't like this game, you can play another.

A lot of people who play games are adults. I'd be glad if Sony didn't treat us like children.

@get2sammyb This is kind of why we had ratings boards as inconsistent as they are. Now it's kind of overbearing to have TWO nannies hovering over games.

PC games aren't safe either, especially if devs port the PS4 versions to PC.

@Rawzuka I feel the same. I even play mainly Japanese niche titles like Nights of Azure, Gal Gun, Senran Kagura, etc.. If Sony goes on like that, I'll take a closer look at my Switch. ^^

Let the ratings boards decide and limit the games audience accordingly.

I mean sure it doesnt always work but legally youve met your requirement. Plus the internet is full of much worse and far easier to get content.

That’s it. I’m chrome plating my pitchfork.

@Knuckles-Fajita
Are ratings enforced in Europe? Just curious. Pretty sure they aren’t in the US...at least for games. Movies, yes. Music, when I was a teen, yes (couldn’t buy 2 Live Crew). Now, not so much. Games though? My son has never had an issue buying a M rated game.

@lacerz Working in retail I can tell you there is a thing such as test purchases where officers send minors in to buy items with age restrictions, including video games.

If a store fails to ID verify or allows the sale to go through, the officers can enter the store and deliver an on the spot fine, and charge the store store manager and company for breach of the law.

Further if you believe, or have any reason to believe, an item is being bought on behalf of an underage individual, present or otherwise at the point of sale, you have a legal responsibility to refuse the sale.

So yeah? Age restrictions on just about anything are enforced. Its illegal to sell to anyone below and you have to be ID'd if you appear under the age of 25. I've been asked for ID numerous times buying games. Not hard.

@Etherwinter thing is if parents did their jobs and used the built in parental controls and buy games for for that kids that are suitable for them then Sony (and other publishers) wouldn't need to censor the games at all

we all know games have an age rating for a reason but a lot of parents just don't care now a days and buy their obviously underage kids the latest games like RDR2 for example because they just would rather not deal with their kid being mardy or being the only person at their school not playing it

Not going to repeat what i said in the senran kagura article, or get into this again, but yes it appears to be a policy change according to xseed:

In a tweet, Xseed localisation producer Tom Lipschultz responded to a fan who asked why Intimacy Mode was a problem now after it had made it into past Senran Kagura games released on PS4 in the west by saying "this is a brand new policy" at Sony.

This is beyond dumb.

@RogerRoger I'm sorry, but why exactly do we have to "protect those who might accidentally stumble into something"? How about parents instead actually do their jobs and be active in knowing what exactly their kids are consuming instead of making the rest of us suffer, yeah?

There's also a number of people still who think video games in general are all for children and will but whatever their kids ask for. So according to your logic, we should ban or censor all the violent M-rated video games out there, to "protect" those parents from making a bad decision, right?

Yeah, this is pretty lame. This gonna happen with DOA6? Which is already toned down on the sex appeal.

@FullbringIchigo I dislike the "think of the children" argument because it's not the developers' job to be parents to children. They shouldn't be censoring games because parents are ignorant. If parents don't want to get involved in their kids hobbies then it's THEIR fault, not the developers. On top of this, education about ratings should be important. Most parents understand movie ratings, so why not try to inform them about video game ratings?

@Etherwinter that was my point, the parents should be doing it but they aint but it's the publishers and console manufacturers that get the blame for it

but on this game i can completely understand the reason why Sony would have it censored given the subject matter

Sony is more likely to censor game compared to nintendo? Is this the worst timelines?

I definitely not comfortable with this.

Everyone is discussing if Sony is morally right to stop poor (hypothetical) Jimmy Bob from accidentally seeing some underboob.
Sony doesn't care about that at all.
Every game released for PlayStation comes with a big ol Sony logo on the box, their reputation is linked to every release.
This is a niche game unlikely to ever earn Sony a noticeable amount of money, censored or not.
If there is a media scandle about this game, or any similar, it could cost Sony a great deal, especially approaching the next generation of consoles.
It's nothing to do with ethics, it's just sensible business decisions.

@ShogunRok that was my first thought

Westerners oh Westerners, shooting man in their face is entertainment but a little pervy guilty pleasure is disgusting ...
Hypocrisy...

Can't believe a time that Sony do more censoring than Nintendo would come...
Glad that I'm getting a Switch...

Good job Sony isn’t in charge of museums. They’d be taking paintings down left, right and centre. Isn’t it the ESRB or PEGI that should be judging what can and cannot be shown?
Drawings of wobbly bits in video games is surely less corruptive than the masses of sexualised content we get on a lot of reality TV and music videos that are more readily available and can be watched on your PlayStation quite easily.

Sorry state of affairs. This new puritanism due to the metoo movement and pc activists sucks.

@wiiware
Now in Last of Us you can't shoot your enemies, you now have to jump off their heads.

@Rawzuka the girls in those anime games could potentially be minors... they certainly don't look older than 14 in some cases. we are talking about borderline pedophilia here... if it were up to me, none of that trash would be released on ps4, censored or not. leave that for the wild west (aka pc) instead as it is known to be indifferent to such content. if this bothers you so much, play the games on pc or beg the publishers to port said games to pc. there needs to be some sort of curation and quality control on playstation. i don't want to insult you for liking these types of games, but in all honesty, maybe you need to grow up and move on as well

Damn now Dead or Alive 6 won't sell good on PS4 without the "Jiggle physics" 😂

Honestly I never thought I would see Sony turn into a Nintendo, sad times indeed

I'm not keen on Sony's stance here. As long as the game is legal and passes the ratings board and gets an appropriate age rating, then I don't think Sony should be interfering and censoring games.

I'm against censoring most of the time. Like when they try to censor jiggle physics especially in games like soulcal and doa where its been present since early entries but the senran kagura thing is dumb. Just stick to the T&A. No need to go into molesty territory

@Xaessya Oh, I'm sure sony didn't have problem with violence, nearly all sony AAA 1st party games like gow, tlou 2, and ghost of tsushima had graphics violence.

I can understand. I mean, where does a line get drawn? I mean, I don’t get Warriors, but I understand Suran Kengera. And I don’t think it’s about protecting the children.
And one thing certain, there’s alsays been a line with all 3 platform holders, AO games. That’s always crossed it. The question is whether anything else should be there. It’s a slippery slope for sure.

@Constable_What no, it probably won't affect you at some point unless you suddenly get into anime pedo games. there is no need to act like there is problem when there isn't one. just more people over reacting, what else is new.

by the way, it is sony's platform and they can control it however they want. if it doesn't please you, feel free to go elsewhere. nobody is losing sleep over an anime pedo game being censored other than those with questionable taste (and to be blunt) or those with some psychological issues that should be addressed.

@Porco You realize not all anime games are pedo right?

Good for sony. Those games look like trash any way. Go see a therapist.

Nintendo is cooler than sony this gen what an odd world.

The games are still sold in Japan by Sony even if they censor it and sell it in other Countries it still supporting the publisher. What makes Sony good if they still sell it in other Countries? Censorship works best when its done by the consumer.

@RogerRoger I don't really think I've taken it to the extreme though. The point I'm illustrating is that different people have different sets of morals. Some people see the extreme violence that you can do in games like GTA or Mortal Kombat to be just as reprehensible as you do to what's depicted in something like Senran Kagura (though calling it child pornography is an extreme reach in my opinion). And there are others still that see depictions of LGBT themes to be just as reprehensible. So why is it that we should take your specific set of morals to be the standard of which we should go by? I mean, considering that all characters in video games are entirely fictitious and thus no actual, real-life living persons are ever harmed in them, there isn't really any difference between one virtual immoral act and the others.

And to your last point, you're basically saying that you'd happily give up any game if there's someone that takes offense at it, correct? So that means that in addition to all sexual content, all violent content should be cut. LGBT themes are also cut as that'd cause emotional distress to some of those on the right (and some feminists when it comes to that T part). But then just having straight themes will offend LGBT people, so...no romance at all then I guess? Oh, and we can't to harm animals of any sort in any way of course, as that'd offend the PETA vegan types. Sooo what would that leave us with? Puzzles games like Tetris? Ah, but then that's a Russian-made game, and given how hated Russia is nowadays I'm sure someone will find offense at that too, so even puzzle games aren't safe...

Do you see my point? How being willing to give up anything if someone somewhere could find offense at it is a bit ludicrous once you think about it?

@TowaHerschel7 yea of course, why on earth would i think all anime games are perverted and classified as such? i am speaking specifically about the anime pedo genre — you know, games that encourage people to get a hard on over 14 year old girls. that crap needs to stop. good on sony for doing so.

You guys quoted oneangrygamer, I know you should mention the source, but this idiot was also complaining about Ellie kissing a woman in The Last of Us 2, saying Naughty Dog and Sony are spreading an agenda.
Funny how this imbecile is not okay with a lesbian kiss, but he is triggered with Sony censoring this kind of stuff. He clearly has an agenda against Sony.

I'm pretty sure that in GTA, you can go grab a hooker, then have intercourse with her, then take her to a dark street and smash her head with a hammer. Then you can steal a car and drive like a madman to smash some kids that are playing soccer.
Don't know about Red Dead, thought.

Look, there will always be a debate like "are we allowed to do this ?" or "can we let THAT pass ?" but the thing is, this kind of crazy-talking about what's right and what's not, where is good and where is evil.. All af this leads us to a world where APU will be deleted from the Simpson's world. Off course it will.

I don't pretend to have the answers here. But I know that I'm not comfortable with this vibe where others tell me what's good for me and what's not. Like I can't think by myself. I predict a tremendous backlash of all this kind of thinking in a decade : people will loose their minds, be so tired of this and go the extreme opposite : comedy will go the trash way again, like never.

As for the games, I don't like the idea of them being alterned, changed by OTHERS people than those who create the game originally. If some suits and ties think that the game is not for us western players, then don't release it. At all.

My two cents here, if you're interested in those games, buy them in the console you feel they're released in their most unchanged form, that way sales will represent actual consumer preference, and sales ultimately will force publishers to that consumer trend if they plan on making any money.

@Porco With animated characters surely they don’t need to censor it and just change the age? It’s just an arbitrary number rather than a real person with a real age.
Can you encourage someone to get aroused by a 14 year old girl? Surely you’re a paedophile or you’re not or will videogames corrupt people?

@Enigk the age is one thing... but the content is also a concern. even if the characters looked over the age of 18, perhaps sony is not comfortable with the sleazy and perverted nature of the game (i.e. fondling breast mini games). it is their platform and if they don't hold those games in a positive light, they need to be censored or removed entirely. let's get real for a second... there are no more than maybe a 100k people worldwide who actually want and crave this type of content. in other words, a very niche audience. sony will not exactly lose much revenue from those folks leaving the platform. preserving a positive image is far more important than pleasing a few perves. if someone wants to jack off to anime characters, guess what? there is an entire sub genre for that within the anime industry and it is called hentai!

In an ideal world nobody would sexualise underage people. However we do not live in an ideal world and there are people out there who do sexualise the underage. I think that this kind of content should not censored because it would be much better for one of these people to view animated children rather than feeling the need to go out and find a real child to exploit. I hope my point came across as I am hoping because that's going to sound real weird otherwise

Good riddance to the Benny Hill type humour. Goodbye to the way male developers sexualise females. I wouldn't want my female friends, family members both old or young, female colleagues or gamers or any of your mothers, sisters, wives, gfs treated like a piece of meat. Well done Sony.

More outrage, I'm shocked.

I don't feel like Sony should be making these calls.
That game that was banned in the UK? That's up the ratings boards to decide. They (I'd hope) are in a better position to judge content than Sony.
With some games it's fair enough but I'm reminded of silly little changes that Nintendo always made when localizing games... We're not all kids you know.

Informing the public about mature or "questionable" content is the job of ratings boards.

Keeping it out of the hands of children is the job of retailers (if they're alone) and parents.

It's disturbing to see the extensive censorship apologism on here. All of this content being censored was previously allowed to exist on the platform with little issue, after all. People who didn't like games with heavily sexual content didn't need to play them. Unfortunately, some can't seem to be happy unless they're policing the content others consume.

There's simply no excuse for this sort of draconian censorship, and, until Sony changes this policy (not expecting them to), I can't support them or new games on their platform in good faith.

Additionally, Japanese developers who want to release Japanese PS4 games have to talk in English with American censors first.

Talk about total cultural imperialism.

This keeps up, PS5 won't be a day one purchase. They're bowing down to pressure from idiots on twitter and in Western games media (which is an absolute disgrace right now even compared to how it was in the 90s when writers assigned themselves animal names) and spitting in the face of people who have spent a lot of money on their systems over the years. I know some will act like this is no big deal, but it can become one very quick.

I'm not one for jumping on the 'boycott' bandwagon, especially when everybody all the sudden seems to be screaming to boycott something, but I could see myself spending more money on Switch and for the first time I may seriously consider getting a real gaming PC.

I'll wait to see what happens with my favorite franchises but this is seriously pathetic behavior. Hilarious to me how people can accept violence and even will argue it doesn't cause people to be violent but a grown ass woman in a string bikini or some jiggle effects (because real boobs don't bounce) and it's the 'evil male gaze' 'patriarchy' and everybody teenage boy is going to grow up and be a serial rapists. Really pathetic mentality and more pathetic that Sony is giving into idiots who think like this.

@Ralizah
The funny thing is, a lot of people I know who aren't happy about this new policy are women. You know, the people the moral puritans seem to think they're protecting.

@Sambi
Games tend to benefit from 'media scandals' much more than they are hurt by them and that holds true even today. Just look at GTA V. It should have no business selling what it does given how hyper sensitive people are these days. Even better example is Kingdom Come: Deliverance, just based on game design alone it likely would have bombed hard had it not been for the fake outrage directed it at by halfwits who have no clue what they're talking about.

Censorship in general needs to stop. I mean who do you think you are telling me what I can or can't look at/say?

Yet all these years we've had women's breasts bouncing around like basketballs in Dead or Alive and even had a beach volleyball game from that franchise. Yet now it's one company censorshiping its games while others like Nintendo are not you'd think it would be the other way roubd

@Porco Aren’t these games more ecchi than hentai though? These games are no Urotsukidoji. First and only hentai I saw many years ago and only anime I ever turned off as it wasnt for me but I wouldn’t want it banned. You start going down a slippery slope if you stop media just because a few people enjoy it. We’ll all be listening to Ed Sheeran, watching Avengers movies, playing Fortnite and reading Harry Potter if we’re not going to bother with less populare fare.

@ShogunRok my lad always plays as Ivy because he says he likes her whip sword 😂. Yeah right 🤣

I think half the problem with games being made like this which stem from Japan is the legal age of consent. Not that the censorship of this game bothers me either way as I'm not interested in the game and also know right from wrong but I'm just glad our legal age of consent isn't 13 like it is in Japan otherwise our market would be flooded with alot worse.

Usually I despise censorship as I think if you don't like something, it is your responsibility to find something else to play rather having developers cater to your whims. However in the case of letting the player effectively be a pedophile, I understand.

I don't think teenage girls should be depicted in this way, so I 100% agree with censorship like this. Arguing in the name of consumer-choice is odd to me, as that discussion should be limited to micro-transactions and similar superficial stuff, not serious matters like this.

My thought has always been that games like this are fully aimed at Japanese gamers, most of which are teenage boys as far as I know. They are not aimed at adult Westerners at all. So I don't feel they promote pedophilia. The question for me is whether these games should be marketed outside of Japan in the first place, considering the majority of Western gamers are adults, it ends up in the wrong demographic by default. It's an irrelevant question perhaps, since I still think it should be censored, whether it's in Japan or elsewhere. Censoring stuff like this does not hurt anyone.

Sony is a distributor and platform-holder, it is fully within their ethical or moral right to decide what their platform is used for and what it wants, or doesn't want, to associate itself with.

@RogerRoger How do feel about 14 year old Ellie making out with her gf on E3 then? They should delete that obviously!

@FullbringIchigo Man poor Sony. If only there was a board that rated games based on age. Or that our current systems had a parental control of some kind that locked what a parent set. A man can dream eh?

Context, context, context, context, context, context, context.

Fast becoming the most important word in the English language, and not nearly enough people on the internet know what it means, apparently.

@RogerRoger
"Two consenting x"

See this is where you are not getting it. They ain't adults and its under the same media that is censoring the evil anime games. I guess its just ok because they gotta push their own narrative.

@ShogunRok
Well look at you popping outta nowhere! Comradery! Gotta back up the poor Sony! Context is king indeed! That being said I myself don't even play said games they are obviously niche and meant for other people. Just though how utterly rubbish it is for a company to actively cherry pick when it has for over 20 years not cared about a thing until a lil while ago. Makes you think what changed.

@RogerRoger
It was an extreme comparisson. But I thought it was just. Literally nothing else was shown outside that kiss. Shes just a kid it was weird af considering the game is aimed at Adults. Why even show us that? We know shes a lesbian from the last game so ??? That being said I agree on this game's content being weird but they have their own market and I doubt a kid is gonna buy a game from playasia or something.

Ie: uncensored jpn version

I think it goes without saying that this will not last, unless SCE wants to completely concede the Japanese market to Nintendo which, as a now California-based company with heavily western-focused titles as their main output, they may be happy to do that.

Speaking of Nintendo, we had a period of this sort of heavy handed censorship with the Wii U and 3DS, which absolutely didn't help get titles like Tokyo Mirage Sessions out to wider audiences, and in fact Probably hurt the sales of titles like FE Fates. Granted, those are first-party titles Nintendo had significant investment in, and these are third party titles by small companies with a limited reach, so perhaps when it's Sony's own purse strings not being affected they really won't see any downsides to these new policies.

That said, the bulk of my PlayStation enjoyment has came from Japanese third-parties, especially in recent years, so I can't help but be a little worried for the future of Sony's Japanese Third-party relations if they continue down their current path.

This is just pushing me to buy these games on other systems. This really seems like the first step towards PS3 era Sony. Talk about a total joke.

@Enigk it panders to the same audience, so what difference does it make? in this world, there are cultural differences whether you want to admit it or not. if japan has no problem with pedophilia-like content and wants to keep promoting it, they have the right to do so. that said, this might not fly in the west for obvious reasons. nothing is stopping someone from importing said game. also, i don't see a very niche game like this encouraging censorship on the whole... if anything, violence and sexual content has been increasing over the past few years in the west so it is misguided to assume censorship is going to suddenly worsen. some content is just plain wrong whether you want to admit it or not... and pedophilia-like content found in some of these games absolutely need to be censored or banned. it is disturbing that japan continues to create such content but that doesn't mean the west is obligated to adopt and accept it.

@RogerRoger You calllinf this stuff child pornography is an insult to victims of actual child pornography. Get real dude. Not to mention in the US this is demonstrably and legally not CP, so you’re just wrong. Though I suppose if you live in the nanny states that are the UK and European countries it is.

@thatguyEZ i think your self entitled attitude is a joke. you are part of a very small, niche, demographic who sony doesn't want to pander to any longer. find what you crave on steam. have fun!

@Tako Massive success in the West is probably what changed.

And I'm not defending Sony, I think by and large people should be able to make up their own minds. But context is always a factor, regardless of the issue. Nothing is as black and white as the internet attempts to make it.

@purplemonkeyspan
"Censorship in general needs to stop. I mean who do you think you are telling me what I can or can't look at/say?".

Flawed logic is flawed. They most certainly have been telling you what you and can't look at for ages. Child pornography for example.

Try inciting violence against a group of people and see if nothing happens to you.

Have people like you forgotten that they live in a society with rules and laws?

@Gamer83 Plenty of other games have been condemned by the media and ended up not selling well. There is no definite proof that those games sold well because of controversy.

Meanwhile even Nintendo is moving away from censorship.

@RogerRoger I just want to mad props for having so much respect for others opinions. The world needs more of that.

@Porco If stories like these weren’t printed most people wouldn’t even be aware of this kind of stuff. These games will likely sell a few more copies now out curiosity.
I personally never attach an age to characters in games. Apparently in Bravely Default they changed character ages in the west but I don't recall them ever mentioning their age in the games. Just an arbitrary number in the instruction book or something I think.
I find it strange how much people object to this stuff in games but will happily commit mass murder in them. Murder is a more serious crime but not in a video game ethics it seems. In violent movies people get more upset when an animal rather than a human dies. I don’t understand the logic. How can people be selective? You either agree or disagree with criminal acts?

@RogerRoger Eh, the point that I was making with that question is that it's extremely hypocritical to me for someone to be perfectly okay with mowing down (in both senses of the word) dozens of pedestrians (who also didn't consent to being violently murdered) in something like GTA, yet find this content to somehow be so much worse for some reason. And Sony was perfectly okay with this mode that had been in the past 3 Senran Kagura games on Sony platforms back when they were released in the west, so all of a sudden having an issue with it NOW is also rather hypocritical of them.

To your second point, how exactly is censoring this mode "protecting minors" in any way? That's suggesting that not having this mode censored is somehow "harming minors"? What actual minors are possibly harmed in the making of this game when 100% of the people involved in making it are adults? To say that playing this somehow "normalizes child abuse" sounds awfully similar to the case that Jack Thompson (and others, some to this day even) made with regards to why violence in video games is "bad". If killing dozens to hundreds of innocent people in GTA and RDR hasn't produced hundreds of serial killers, then how is this somehow instead going to produce hundreds of child abusers?

And to the last point...um...you wanted me to instead continue arguing the points where you agreed with me? Or to, I don't know, thank you for agreeing with me on those points? I'm actually not trying to be snarky or anything here, but rather genuinely confused as to how I'm suppose to acknowledge when you've agreed with me in a debate. Thus far your replies to me have come off as quite diplomatic to me, and I quite appreciate it!

@Porco I don’t think you know what the word entitled means friendo.

People saying anime games is automatically a pedo game. It’s not folks. Should we automatically start calling games like cod and gta murder games?.

definately not true about Warriors Orochi 4 unless it didnt change in NA version or they dulled it down , but as for history im pretty sure the Bra wasnt invented back then so staying on the historical side of it its accurate LOL. its not like they are 90% naked like Dead or Alive extreme and based in time where there are shoulder boulder holders

How I see it is if Game of Thrones on television shows Rape, and Incest for Children to see among many other sexual acts, and violence, then why isn't television being censored even if it is HBO children can still turn to the channel more easily then switching to a M Rated game that the parent should of not bought them. Some Parents should just abort their child rather then having them if they can't raise them properly.