Nippon Ichi Software has announced that three of their CERO Z-rated titles will be leaving the PlayStation 3 and Vita stores, a natural response to PlayStation’s decision that the old PlayStation 3 and Vita stores will be removing credit card and PayPal payment options.
Nippon Ichi announced the following games will be removed from PlayStation 3’s and Vita’s stores:
Shin Hayarigami
Shin Hayarigami 2
Iwaihime -Matsuri–
Fortunately, these games can be found on other consoles and PC, so it won’t be a permanent loss. However, given Nippon Ichi’s move here, it can be safely assumed that other Japanese studios may follow, since their CERO Z games won’t be purchasable after the loss of those payment options.
While the decision to remove these payment options from the old storefronts impacts every region, Japan takes an additional hit as CERO Z-rated games require credit card information to confirm the customer’s age. When Japan’s Computer Entertainment Rating Organization (CERO) rates a game as Z, it means those games are not suitable for players under the age of 18. After October 26th, 2021, this age verification becomes impossible.
Get a PC and Nintendo Switch, problem solved.
This would also be a means for Sony to remove itself of older titles that it’s been around so long making them impossible to censor. I mean really they can’t go back and edit out the hot spring scenes from Lunar 1 & 2 at this point now.
Time to go to Playasia and look for some older titles again I guess.
Interesting. This probably means that there might be some sort of fee to keep these titles on the store.
And let me tell you,it’s not much,it’s around 999 quadrillion bucks to do it.
Age ratings are dumb anyway. Wonder who we have to thank for them even being a thing.
For the US it was the PTA and angry parents. Their deal with MK back in the day. Look it up, it’s an interesting read.
This is why physical media is superior. Also thank the Custom Firmware community for really keeping these games archived and allowing to be played. Despite the bullshit platform holders do
So how is bit rot treating you.