Though eroge may (very) slowly be gaining commercial traction in the western world, it seems that there is no place for them yet on major consoles, at least according to Microsoft Europe.

Xbox LIVE member (and would be indie game developer) "naoki sagawa" reported on his blog that Sore demo, watashi wa aishiteiru (Still, I Love You), a visual novel he developed for the Xbox LIVE Indie Games Marketplace, had been removed from distribution. He stated that prior to its removal, he was contacted by Microsoft Europe, who said that one of Sore demo's event scenes contained inappropriate content, namely three particular "visual reminders of sexual assault:"

1. The girl's hand is restrained
2. She is being pushed down
3. Her underwear is visible

A picture of the scene in question is available in the gallery courtesy of Canned Dogs. It should be noted that Sore demo is NOT an adult game, and contained no actual H content. That said, upon examination it's easy to see why Microsoft might misinterpret the scene and deem it inappropriate, even if the way it is set up is very common in anime and bishoujo games.

Sagawa requested that distribution be limited to Japan-only while he altered the scene to spec, but was threatened with account suspension if distribution was not halted immediately.

While content censorship on consoles is hardly a new thing (console ports of eroge are stripped of their ero all the time), what's more interesting to me is that it was Microsoft Europe that did the contacting, rather than MS Japan or USA. This means that any indie game put on the marketplace will be subject to the strictest set of content rules, even if acceptable in other regions. Could this limit more adventurous indie development in the Xbox LIVE community marketplace, already choked with clocks and other junk?

In any case, Sore demo, watashi wa aishiteiru, once available for 240 Microsoft Banana Dollars (about $3), is now gone. Sagawa's other title, the sh'mup Crescendo Symphony is still available for same. What do you think? Would you want to be seen playing an eroge on Xbox LIVE?