WiiNintendo

With two forms of adult-related ratings — Japan’s new video game system seems so familiar. Kotaku and its correspondent in Japan (Brian Ashcraft) report that the Japanese will adopt a new rating system for video games.The Japanese ratings are A, B, C, D and Z. Games rated D have content for gamers above 17-years-old, while Z-rated games are for consumers above 18. This new rating system immediately should remind gamers stateside of our own ESRB’s rating system. Like our system, there’s only a distinction of one year between being able to purchase an M(or D across the sea)-rated game and an AO(Z)-rated game. Rather than get hung up on the semantics of whether or not there’s a real difference between a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old, the most important thing to glean from the ratings change is how effectively the rules will be enforced in Japan. Stateside, retailers (and parents alike) have had problems enforcing the ESRB rules (on both their customers and their children).Finally, what games were affected by the change? The Grand Theft Auto games, Driv3r, Killer 7 and both Getaway titles were lumped into the Z rating group. Titles like Ninja Gaiden, Metal Gear Solid 3, Fable and Resident Evil 4 ended up in with D-ratings.
Source