lol MS,that means many rated M games can sell in US win8 marketplace but can't sell in Europe buecause PEGI 18

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/windows-8-marketplace-will-not-sell-18-rated-games/0104349

Microsoft’s own guidelines for the Windows 8 Marketplace will prevent the sale of 18 rated games, it has been confirmed.

Kotaku has had confirmation directly from Microsoft that new rules regarding the sale of apps WILL apply to all games sold through the portal.

Specifically, the guidelines read: “Apps with a rating over or PEGI 16, ESRB Mature, or a corresponding rating under other ratings systems are not allowed.”

This shouldn’t cause much of an issue in the US where very few titles receive anything beyond a Mature rating, but in Europe it could potentially lock out a litany of he market’s best sellers.

PEGI 18-rated games include Modern Warfare 3, Skyrim, Mass Effect 3, Deux Ex and The Walking Dead.

Although such titles can easily be obtained from other outlets, of course, any games not officially Windows endorsed will lack some of Windows 8’s newer functionality, unless of course publishers submit a toned-down censored version for Microsoft’s portal. 

Wow, that was smart.

Its like they want Windows 8 to fail.

I could be wrong but to me this sounds like a problem with the PEGI rating system ...

From what I can tell the ESRB created ratings that were based on movie ratings and Mature is (roughly) the same as R-rated, and AO is (roughly) the same as NC-17. The problem is that PEGI doesn't have an equivalent rating which is a massive mistake.

I really dislike non-open platforms that try to censor and feed desired content.

Saw 1 orginally was NC-17,then directer cut some scene to make it rated R

From my understanding, there are usually 2 reasons for something being rated NC-17

1) Its porn

2) It pushes the limit of what most people would accept from a R-rated movie; that is, violence, sex, language, or drug content at a level where a large portion of the audience will be offended. Explicit sex or torture scenes are the primary drivers, but South Park had to remove (something like) 5 minutes of swearing to get down to a R rating rather than a NC-17.

The reason for the difference between R and NC-17 is (mostly) because movie theaters wanted similar rules to what Microsoft is trying to enact. Without theaters trying to create arbitrary judgements on every movie released, they wanted a rating (originally "X" but later changed to "NC-17") that was for eXplicit content that would offend people so that they could refuse to show those movies.

not an issue really. MS will see the error and fix it to include pegi 18 as it really is within the bounds of M ratings. M just envelopes pegi 16 and pegi 18 together in one rating.

Rethinking this.

ESRB M means 15 and up.

ESRB AO means 18 and up (adults only).

So really M does = PEGI 16 and AO should = PEGI 18.

MS is right and in reality, the PEGI group needs to rate games like COD PEGI 16 to match ESRB M.

i hope more as the german xbox marketplace problem which is now a 7 years problem (because of one microsoft idiot in germany who doesn't want to resolve it)

The problem is that PEGI doesn't have it's own AO rating. Instead everything that's considered Mature or AO by ESRB, usually is thrown into one basket for PEGI, which is 18. Japan most likely faces the same problem because Z rating (18+) seems to cover content similar way as PEGI.

Maybe that's their line of thought?