Gematsu: Visual novel Silverio Trinity coming to PlayStation, hindered by recent Sony regulations

LossAversion · Oct 28, 2018

It's well within Sony's rights to decide what games can and cannot be released on their platform. And publishers/developers can choose to censor their games to get them on Sony's platform or they can choose to not release them on Sony's platform. At the same time, I don't like censorship and I would much rather let the consumer decide what they want to buy. I don't like a platform holder dictating what people can and cannot purchase. We have rating boards all across the globe and we should be able to use those to determine if we are interested in a certain product. I'm all for parental controls or perhaps even a separate "adult" section on the PS Store. Those are much better solutions than forcing censorship on the publishers and consumers.

We have a huge double standard going on here. We'll never see Sony force a company like Rockstar to censor the nudity found in Red Dead. Or EA to censor the sex scenes in Dragon Age. I'm not defending all of these "groping simulators" but I do think the market should decide whether or not it wants to support those games and not the platform holders. Plus, those types of games are not the only targets of this censorship from what I can see. Sony is going to do whatever they want and maybe they won't go any further than censoring visual novels and Senran Kagura games. Personally, I'd prefer other solutions that don't involve inconsistent censorship from the whims of a single corporation.

Gold Arsene · Oct 28, 2018

Eusis said:
I think it's mainly just aiming to keep really trashy anime stuff off, and that catches some in the cross fire that actually were more tasteful/adult centric.

Then why did Senran Kagura just have a mode remove and not get outright banned despite the fact that non of the other content of the game was seemingly touched?

That's ignoring the fact that playing goal keeper to content that already has to go through a ratings board is stupid and just asking for more problems later.

Sanox · Oct 28, 2018

Eusis said:
I looked and Andrew House did step down with new leadership last fall/early this year, which seems to coincide with when this started. Hopefully Sony comes to moderate it so it's less heavy handed (it's also why it's been tricky for me to comment in other threads; as a general principle I don't want content blocked, but is stuff like SK's sketchy modes really content that should be preserved anyway?)

Don't think SK needs a mode like that

don't care about the mode and find it out of place with how SK presents its fanservice otherwise. Over the top and humorous and a simple touching mode that is limited anyway feels out of place and won't satisfy people who would want a mode like this either.

But the mode was O.Ked by rating boards. I have a huge problem with Sony out of nowhere deciding to make things needlessly complicated for devs and causing them to not only lose money because of it but they will have to spend more money as well

At the end this will only affect small niche devs as Sony wouldn't dare tell a big AAA company to change something not to mention the double standard of Western explicit content vs anything in a Japanese game.

Deleted member 10629 · Oct 28, 2018

Sony about to pull a 90's Nintendo. Burn all the goodwill built on the shoulders of the PSP/PS Vita with the small devs :/

I can understand blatant sexualization like that touching sim shit on Senran Kagura or Criminal Girls, but placing another hurdle for Japanese devs (in general) to jump wont go unnoticed.

Valcrist · Oct 28, 2018

I'm not surprised that Nintendo isn't censoring this stuff by the way. Old quote:

Nintendo Co. is encouraging some producers of violent or risqué videogames to provide content for its Switch console in an attempt to shed its image as a maker of devices just for families, software developers say.

BasilZero · Oct 28, 2018

Kalentan said:
It's interesting that Sony didn't care about Soul Calibur VI where in CaS you can make busty ladies wearing nothing but underwear with full breast physics intact. And that has a more or less realistic art style.

Its because the person who made the CaS can say its a 1,000 year old dragon which is a-ok :P

lol

LossAversion · Oct 28, 2018

Kalentan said:
It's interesting that Sony didn't care about Soul Calibur VI where in CaS you can make busty ladies wearing nothing but underwear with full breast physics intact. And that has a more or less realistic art style.

$$$$$

Sony isn't going to force censorship on any big publishers which is why this censorship is hypocritical and unwarranted.

Suzushiiro · Oct 28, 2018

LossAversion said:
$$$$$

Sony isn't going to force censorship on any big publishers which is why this censorship is hypocritical and unwarranted.

Yeah, it was a similar deal in the mid '00s when Sony starting changing the rules for what you could release/localize- big publishers could crap out all the shovelware they wanted and Sony didn't give a fuck, but they gave Working Designs so much shit over the good-but-dated-looking titles they wanted to release that they went out of business.

Deleted member 5535 · Oct 28, 2018

Principate said:
I know but these divisions aren't completely separate the fate games have released exclusives on PlayStation console wise a for a while now. There's no doubt there's things like publishing deals across divisions.

Those games were from Marvelous though, I think it's more because of fanbase on the systems than something related to Sony.

casiopao said:
You dont need to go that far lol. Considering Sony Music publish FGO in japan which is a mobage with tons of questionable character design even worst than the currently censored VN. This censorship feels really strange.

That's Aniplex. I mean, they're owned by SMEJ but the publishing is by Aniplex. (which is also one of the biggest companies funding the Fate animation)

And it's true, many Sony subsidiaries fund many anime, which you can see the contradiction between the many branches lol

Ridley327 said:
The thing with Nintendo is they haven't touched third party games in over 20 years, when they dropped their old concept approval practices in the advent of the ESRB, who they deferred to ever since. Other than the blanket "no AO games ever" policy that every platform holder has in place, they don't impose any kind of content changes to third party games.

The only recent issue I can think of in that regard was they passed on the original version of The Binding of Isaac for release on 3DS during the concept approval phase, due to what many believed to be issues they had with its religious content, but that turned out to be rather short-lived as the Rebirth version is on everything that can play it these days, including three different pieces of Nintendo hardware.

That's true. Nintendo have this fame because of their first party titles being altered in the west or what they did in the nes/snes era but they don't meddle with third party for decades.

Eolz · Oct 28, 2018

Crazy Izanagi said:
I'm honestly starting to wonder if this is gonna effect stuff like Persona.

I guess we'll see if all the costumes for Dancing are brought over or not.

And again, what is it their after exactly?

The groping mode in Senran Kagura is to much ok I get that. But the rest of the game and all it's sexulization is apparently ok?

I wonder what it'll mean for Catherine, especially since it's releasing just on PS4 and Vita (well, just PS4 in the west).

Bayouswampman · Oct 28, 2018

Eolz said:
I wonder what it'll mean for Catherine, especially since it's releasing just on PS4 and Vita (well, just PS4 in the west).

Remember that in the original game the Catherines would send you lewd pictures over the course of the game? Will the new girl do that too? Her design certainly makes it seem like Sony wont allow it

vkbest · Oct 28, 2018

Eolz said:
I wonder what it'll mean for Catherine, especially since it's releasing just on PS4 and Vita (well, just PS4 in the west).

Atlus = Persona, Atlus = Sega.

Don't think they will risk to lose Yakuza, Persona, etc. Sony is bullying small companies

Hexa · Oct 28, 2018

Bayouswampman said:
Remember that in the original game the Catherines would send you lewd pictures over the course of the game? Will the new girl do that too? Her design certainly makes it seem like Sony wont allow it

IIRC only Catherine sent you lewd pictures. The only image you got from Katherine was a wholesome one of them at a birthday or something like that, which fits into what both of them represent.

Suzushiiro · Oct 28, 2018

Eolz said:
I wonder what it'll mean for Catherine, especially since it's releasing just on PS4 and Vita (well, just PS4 in the west).

I highly doubt even mid-sized publishers like Sega or Koei-Tecmo will be affected by this because that would generate backlash outside of the usual spheres that actually care about small weeb games. It'll probably just the little guys.

FluxWaveZ · Oct 28, 2018

Hexa said:
IIRC only Catherine sent you lewd pictures. The only image you got from Katherine was a wholesome one of them at a birthday or something like that, which fits into what both of them represent.

There was this one:

Oregano · Oct 28, 2018

It's from a bigger publishers so I'm sure Sony will let this slide...

KiNolin · Oct 28, 2018

FluxWaveZ said:
There was this one:

four toes aren't lewd

Bayouswampman · Oct 28, 2018

I have to wonder if the people who made the policy changes are the same ones who put together that godawful E3 this year. It would certainly explain a lot about the decision making process at Sony US

Hexa · Oct 28, 2018

FluxWaveZ said:
There was this one:

I did not remember seeing that image so I looked this up. There's an image you get at the end from a backup utility. By default it is this:

But after seeing the good/true ends it unlocks alternates.
http://catherine.wikia.com/wiki/Mail_8-2

The same applies to Catherine with a different mail.
http://catherine.wikia.com/wiki/Mail_5-3

I'm not sure I would consider those canon.

salromano · Oct 28, 2018

Kind of weird how they announced Kadokawa Games' LoveR, which is a love simulation game, at their fairly recent TGS pre-show show, when two of its heroines are 5th and 8th grade students. And the other four are 10th through 12th.

Though I also haven't played or looked into the producer's past games (Photo Kano, KimiKiss, Amagami, etc.), which LoveR is considered to be a successor to, so I'm not aware how these games play out.

klee123 · Oct 28, 2018

salromano said:
Kind of weird how they announced Kadokawa Games' LoveR, which is a love simulation game, at their fairly recent TGS pre-show show, when two of its heroines are 5th and 8th grade students. And the other four are 10th through 12th.

Though I also haven't played or looked into the producer's past games (Photo Kano, KimiKiss, Amagami, etc.), which LoveR is considered to be a successor to, so I'm not aware how these games play out.

Kadokawa owns From software.

Clive · Oct 28, 2018

salromano said:
Kind of weird how they announced Kadokawa Games' LoveR, which is a love simulation game, at their fairly recent TGS pre-show show, when two of its heroines are 5th and 8th grade students. And the other four are 10th through 12th.

Though I also haven't played or looked into the producer's past games (Photo Kano, KimiKiss, Amagami, etc.), which LoveR is considered to be a successor to, so I'm not aware how these games play out.

Is there anything that implies that this policy is strictly about girls of young ages? Feels like the games impacted don't really have a strong link between them except 'sexiness', and even then, Senran Burst still has girls in their underwear. Is it known what is and what isn't allowed?

Bayouswampman · Oct 28, 2018

Clive said:
Is it known what is and what isn't allowed?

No one except the people at Sony themselves know the speciics of this policy and thats the problem. I'd like to think there is someone at Sony who doesnt agree with it and could leak the details of it but the poor person would probably lose his/her job for it

fiendcode · Oct 28, 2018

Kadokawa is huge too, games are just a small part of their biz.

Gold Arsene · Oct 28, 2018

I mean if it they wouldn't go after big publishers that's a small personal relief.

But it'd still be bullshit for the smaller ones to have to go through that and I'd be worried about what sort of precedent it'd set.

I don't want "no 2D games" Sony back.

Lizardus · Oct 28, 2018

FluxWaveZ said:
There was this one:

Paging ILikeFeet

NISA President vindicated, no apology needed. We forgive you King.

Clive · Oct 28, 2018

Bayouswampman said:
No one except the people at Sony themselves know the speciics of this policy and thats the problem. I'd like to think there is someone at Sony who doesnt agree with it and could leak the details of it but the poor person would probably lose his/her job for it

Feels like developers should know too but it seems they don't. If Sony is going to make major changes in the game certification process then they should really send out an email to every single licensed developer about these changes. That's one of the things that bother me the most, it's catching small developers and publishers off guard and costing these a lot of extra work and money.

BlackLagoon · Oct 28, 2018

Bayouswampman said:
I'm asking if the scene should have been censored in the west. If Sony is gonna apply western standards to Japanese games shouldnt they be consistent and apply them to western games too? Or does Rockstar get a pass because theyre too big to bully?

As I recall, Sony has an entirely different team (publisher relations) that handles the big publishers. Indies, and probably niche publishers as well, go through developer relations. The two teams subjecting games to different levels of scrutiny is certainly quite possible.

Oregano · Oct 28, 2018

Crazy Izanagi said:
I mean if it they wouldn't go after big publishers that's a small personal relief.

But it'd still be bullshit for the smaller ones to have to go through that and I'd be worried about what sort of precedent it'd set.

I don't want "no 2D games" Sony back.

It's not exactly taking a moral stand if you only apply it to companies you can push around. But that's probably the reality...

Sanox · Oct 28, 2018

Just what the hell Sony

Their whole crossplay stance for a while

Their laughable comments on backwards compatibility

After it took ages for it to be even a thing they managed to make psn name changing a mess

Sony deciding they are above rating boards and need their own super special rating that will pretty much just affect and hurt niche devs. Straight up bullying devs off your platform

Mr Swine · Oct 28, 2018

Sanox said:
Just what the hell Sony

Their whole crossplay stance for a while

Their laughable comments on backwards compatibility

After it took ages for it to be even a thing they managed to make psn name changing a mess

Sony deciding they are above rating boards and need their own super special rating that will pretty much just affect and hurt niche devs. Straight up bullying devs off your platform

I think the problem is that they have the western devs in their hands and they have the best selling platform where most of the games sell best on PS4, so they really don't care anymore about small Japanese devs

Sanox · Oct 28, 2018

Mr Swine said:
so they really don't care anymore about small Japanese devs

Which is tragic because the wide range of titles was what made PS great all these generations

tomofthepops · Oct 28, 2018

People acting like Sony is flushing their whole business down the drain when they just want to make sure that they aren't selling "questionable" content on their store front.

Sandfox · Oct 28, 2018

tomofthepops said:
People acting like Sony is flushing their whole business down the drain when they just want to make sure that they aren't selling "questionable" content on their store front.

The problem people have is with how Sony is handling it.

Gold Arsene · Oct 28, 2018

tomofthepops said:
People acting like Sony is flushing their whole business down the drain when they just want to make sure that they aren't selling "questionable" content on their store front.

1.) Questionable or not this is still pretty BS. The fact that small Japanese companies have to submit their stuff in English is not cool. Regardless of feelings on the content if it passes the rating board it should pass period. It wasn't cool when Nintendo did it it's still not cool now.

2.) The rules themselves are inconsistent. You say this is to stop "questionable" content, yet Senran Kagura is still going to be released, presumably with all the stripping and sexuality in the main game in tact. As the only edits we're aware of is the removal of one mode. Yet we have the bizarre censorship as shown in that tweet posted.

3.) This sets a bad precedent IMO as it's not like Sony's policies hasn't damaged games in the past. See the "no 2-D games" or their bizarre stances on PSP ports. I'd rather not give them the idea that stuff like that could be "ok" again.

4.) Finally the bizarre lack of communication about what exactly they're trying to do here and what "content" their weeding out. Because it sound like even the developers don't know. Time is money and these rules and their lack of communication sound like there waisting both.

KtSlime · Oct 28, 2018

Lindsay said:
At least Sony's dropped the double standard of "this is okay in country x but not country y". About time they got their house in order. Now SCEA can consistently be dickheads to game devs in other regions! 2D BAD! TROPHYS OR BUST! EXTRA CONTENT OR NO PORT!!

The double standard still exists with violent scenes. I hope Sony adopts Japan's more enlightened view on violence in video games and ~~forces it upon~~ liberates Americans.

Etain · Oct 28, 2018

KtSlime said:
The double standard still exists with violent scenes. I hope Sony adopts Japan's more enlightened view on violence in video games and ~~forces it upon~~ liberates Americans.

Most likely that isn't Sony, but is CERO. Which just goes back to the rating board thing (and not a place where many of us will agree I suspect, but at least it's one line to worry about, not two lines.)

Nanashrew · Oct 28, 2018

Crazy Izanagi said:
3.) This sets a bad precedent IMO as it's not like Sony's policies hasn't damaged games in the past. See the "no 2-D games" or their bizarre stances on PSP ports. I'd rather not give them the idea that stuff like that could be "ok" again.

IIRC they also had a bizarre policy about empty space and how they wanted devs to fill widescreen back on PS3. It's why so many shmups (especially of the vertical kind) made their home on 360 back in the day. If you were ever into shmups the 360 was literally heaven.

Yasumi · Oct 28, 2018

Eusis said:
Most likely that isn't Sony, but is CERO. Which just goes back to the rating board thing (and not a place where many of us will agree I suspect, but at least it's one line to worry about, not two lines.)

It's not.

sllp3030 said:
From reddit

Bayouswampman · Oct 28, 2018

KtSlime said:
The double standard still exists with violent scenes. I hope Sony adopts Japan's more enlightened view on violence in video games and ~~forces it upon~~ liberates Americans.

Someone made the really apt comparison earlier that Sony forcing Japan only releases to comply with "Western" sensibilities would be like if every game released in America was forced to comply with Australian standards

Etain · Oct 28, 2018

Yasumi said:
It's not.

Oh, that was about the differences in violence between regions. That's almost always based on CERO, not SIE.

EDIT: But thanks for pointing that out, I didn't quote, and it may follow the post it's responding to but clarity for the context always helps.

Deleted member 5535 · Oct 28, 2018

Shin-Kisa said:
Kadokawa owns From software.

The Kadokawa Group owns them yeah, but Kadokawa Games isn't related to From Software besides being part of the same company, they're more like sister companies in that sense. There's no relation of subsidiary and parent company in there.

Ridley327 · Oct 28, 2018

Nemesis162 said:
The Kadokawa Group owns them yeah, but Kadokawa Games isn't related to From Software besides being part of the same company, they're more like sister companies in that sense. There's no relation of subsidiary and parent company in there.

Even if From wasn't a part of them, I doubt Sony would want to flex on someone as big as Kadokawa, considering just how big they are.

Bayouswampman · Oct 28, 2018

tomofthepops said:
People acting like Sony is flushing their whole business down the drain when they just want to make sure that they aren't selling "questionable" content on their store front.

So the graphic sex shown in GTA5 and RDR2 doesn't count as questionable but an anime girl in a bikini does?

ILikeFeet · Oct 28, 2018

Lizardus said:
Paging ILikeFeet

NISA President vindicated, no apology needed. We forgive you King.

Niiiii-wait

>4-toes

ArjanN · Oct 28, 2018

Hexa said:
Playstation is much bigger than Steam right now so it still makes sense for them to wait on Sony, even if they're being ridiculous. Hopefully, PC/Steam takes off more in Japan in the near future so they can just pass on dealing with Sony's nonsense.

I'm pretty sure Steam actually has more users than playstation.

fiendcode · Oct 28, 2018

ArjanN said:
I'm pretty sure Steam actually has more users than playstation.

Significantly more globally but he was probably talking about Japan.

Igniz12 · Oct 28, 2018

Eusis said:
Most likely that isn't Sony, but is CERO. Which just goes back to the rating board thing (and not a place where many of us will agree I suspect, but at least it's one line to worry about, not two lines.)

Why would a Japanese ratings board be making devs to detail ratings info in English?

Eolz · Oct 28, 2018

Bayouswampman said:
So the graphic sex shown in GTA5 and RDR2 doesn't count as questionable but an anime girl in a bikini does?

One is not anime style so it's fine.

Sanox · Oct 28, 2018

Eolz said:
One is not anime style so it's fine.

Yup

Imagine Cyberpunk but the section in the demo where the player finds the naked woman is full of lightbeams in the PS4 version. Would be a massive shitstorm

Gematsu: Visual novel Silverio Trinity coming to PlayStation, hindered by recent Sony regulations

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