Nintendo Offers ‘Adults Only’ Application on Nintendo Switch for Japan
The words ‘Nintendo’ and ‘adults only’ seem at odds with each other- with the Japanese company being dedicated to offering family-friendly games whilst restricting more mature offerings on their systems. You may be surprised, then, to hear that Nintendo is launching an adults-only app on the Switch. However, this has a good explanation behind it. This app is a part of Nintendo’s Switch Online service and will essentially gatekeep any mature games that are normally found within the Expansion Pack section for users in other parts of the world.
Image by Nintendo
So far, this only includes the Nintendo 64 offerings ‘GoldenEye 007’ and ‘Jet Force Gemini’, but more are likely to be released as the Expansion Pack receives more games. The reason these games are separated from the rest is that they fall under the highest age classification in Japan under the CERO system: ‘Z’, which is reserved for 18+. The reason why these are not split up in other countries such as the USA is that they are considered ‘T for teen as opposed’ to ‘M for mature’. You can see the full Japanese gaming classifications below:
As a country, Japan is notorious for being much more lax on sexual content while being strict on violence (which is the opposite for the UK and USA for the most part). As a result, any games containing any extreme violence or blood are given higher ratings to restrict access to them by younger players. This will be the first time these games are available to players on the system when the app launches on November 30th, as these were previously exclusive to the West since they were added to the service earlier this year.
Image by Nintendo
Access to the app will, of course, be restricted to accounts on the Switch system with an age attached to them of 18 or older. Considering how tame these N64 releases are today, it seems a strange restriction but, since an age rating stays on a game at release and can almost never be changed, this was a solution Nintendo had to implement to bring the games to Japanese players. Considering how strict the CERO age rating board is in the country, expect to see more releases come to the restricted app as Nintendo fills out its N64 offerings on its Switch Online service in the coming months.
