Everybody has at least three PSN accounts, right? Can't there be a better solution? Most of the content on PSN stores overlaps anyway, so it should be more efficient to manage it in one place. The store front would conceptually display content from two sources side-by-side: 1)content from the international PSN (majority of demos and DLC) and 2)content that appropriately remains in control of a local branch (something like Singstar Suomi Rock).Y2Kev said:
That would mean that a lot of content will not be localized yet, but at the benefit of earlier access for those who care. I usually do, and there's bunches of others. Yes, please let me opt out of waiting for a localized version. Slap "All text will be in English"/"All text will be in Japanese" warnings on the content and go. If I purchase something I don't understand after having been warned, it's clearly my own fault I would think.
To get clear of rating boards/trade restriction issues, you'd have to use age verification. E.g. in the infamous Germany, you can use "Postident" to verify a person's age in a way that would hold up in any court. People with valid credit card info should be fine too, because ownership usually requires that the person is of legal age (oh god that sounds dirty).
Then, on the PSN store, just don't display 18+ (or as-of-yet unrated) content to machines with master accounts of untrusted age.
The net effect is that a PS3 in a European backwater country with an account that hasn't performed age verification would offer roughly the same content on the store as it does right now -- of course right now any doofus can bypass the local store and access US/UK/Hong Kong/Japan whatever they please, but that's not really a desirable end goal for either party.
Additionally, there'd be the option to access content with certain ratings and language restriction on clear legal ground, by going through an age verification process the results of which are then enforced by the machine.
Please.
