Despite Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft having policies against Adults Only games on their consoles, the retailer BD-Game does not give a damn and has started selling Blu-ray versions of various erotic visual novels which are playable on the PS3 using its Blu-Ray player.
This includes titles like Key’s Kanon which holds a rating of 8.04 on VNDB, and Hajimete no Orusuban. How do these work without Sony flipping a fork? They use the Blu-Ray player technology for menu navigation and progressing through the story, meaning when stripped down it’s just a massive menufest, which is actually a very clever idea considering how visual novels work in general, with very minimal (if at all) interaction from the gamer.
This isn’t just a good idea, it has a good chance to open the floodgates since the visual novel market in Japan is quite large, and it gives artists, musicians, and writers a low-budget chance to show off their skills and creativity, and many anime and manga started off as visual novels, including Fate/Stay Night, Song of Saya, and Galaxy Angel.
If you’re interested in picking up Kanon for a Blu-Ray player, it will be sold by BD-Game on October 28th, but if you’ve played any of Key’s games before (excluding Little Busters) you’re better off ignoring it unless you really like that mushy slice of life comedy style. If this catches on, it could give the very small VN market in the United States another chance of getting somewhere. Sony’s opinion on this is unknown but I’m sure a few gamers already use the PS3 for high-definition porn.
Rian Quenlin
For those who are eroge and visual novels fans, I linked Peter Payne of Jlist to the article, all while hoping he’ll jump straight onto a brand-new idea.