Sony's new censorship policy forces Japanese developers to censor themselves, even in Japan

A new Sony Interactive Entertainment policy is forcing Japanese developers to censor games not only in Western regions, but even in their home country.

The Japanese development company Light recently organized a live broadcast (via Hachima) confirming that Sony's aggressive new policy against sexual themes in games apparently made in Japan prevented them from publishing their latest visual novel.

The game, Silverio Trinity (photo), is their latest visual novel opus – and it contains sexual themes. The developers have noted that Sony is becoming more strict about the approval process, especially with regard to sexual themes.

The developer said he hoped to launch the game on PlayStation 4 shortly after the New Year, the development of the game is over, but Sony has hesitated to approve the game.

In addition, Sony confusingly asks Japanese developers to plead their approval only in English, making the process even more difficult for developers whose staff only speaks or writes in Japanese.

The developer said that if he released the game for Windows PC (via Steam), he could release it next week.

While Western versions of Japanese sex-based games have been censored for decades, this is the first time we hear about a platform owner forcing Japanese developers to censor their game in order to market it in their home country. .

This new Sony policy has forced the PQube publisher to cancel the Western version for Omega Labyrinth Zas well as Marvelous to remove a recurring feature from their last Senran Kagura Thu, Senran Kagura Re: Newal.

Other Japanese games have also been censored for publication in Japan, such as the PlayStation 4 version of another adult visual novel. Nora, princess and stray cat. While the PC, PS Vita and Switch versions came out without any censorship, the PlayStation 4 version has huge white censorship trails on naughty images of the girls in the series.

Western-designed games with free sexual themes, such as Red Dead Redemption or Sony's various David Cage games, seem to be outside this new policy.

What do you think of Sony's new aggressive policy against Japanese games with sexualized anime girls? Sound off in the comments below!

About Brandon Orselli

Big Papa Overlord at Niche Gamer. Italian. Dad. Outlaw is fighting for a better game industry. I'm also writing about music, food and beer. Also a guy from the computer.