When reports surfaced that Sony was actively forcing developers to censor sexual content in their games, even within Japan, a follow-up report noted Sony America confirmed they now have an internal advisory board that further restricts sexual content being published. Now, Sony Japan (via Game Spark) is claiming that isn’t the case.

A Sony Japan representative noted that “new rules have not been implemented” and that games are evaluated internally on a case by case basis, as opposed to the remarks from a Sony America rep that said the #MeToo movement and concerns over their global reputation being tarnished have led to them cracking down on sexual content – particularly with women.

The Sony Japan rep also noted that they respect the ideas of creators, but in extraordinarily rare cases – where games have overtly sexual content that might be offensive or uncomfortable to users, an executive officer from Sony will check the content of the game on a case by case basis and will make sure it complies with the policy.

The source notes that even with this policy, the industry has been vocal in parents using parental control functions on gaming hardware, to make sure kids below a certain age shouldn’t be able to view certain kinds of mature content – which gets evaluated by a content rating board like CERO (in Japan) or the ESRB (in the USA).

Despite this, the source echoes our previous coverage, that Sony isn’t going by ratings given by these boards, they’re moving towards restricting content in games based on a global standard policy – where games deemed problematic are looked at by an executive officer.