Yesterday we discovered that the cover art for both versions of Catherine were appearing altered on the Gamefly service and then also on Amazon.com (Amazon has since altered the box art back to the original). This spelled out bad news for fans of the game as it was originally announced that the cover art would not be censored at all and fans would receive the same cover as the Japanese version of the game.
Fans can breath a small sigh of relief however because after contacting ATLUS we were able to find out from Aram Jabbari that the cover art is only going to be modified for select markets. These markets are a minority and the vast majority of the titles will instead keep the same cover art originally released. You can read his full statement below:
“In addition to the existing North American covers for Catherine on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, there will also be modified designs that appear in select markets. The vast majority of copies available at launch will feature the cover we originally unveiled, essentially the Japanese cover of the game. A small percentage of copies, however, will feature a cover that is more considerate of certain retailers’ broader customer demographic. Fans need not worry; Catherine’s cover art is NOT being altered for North America. There is just an extra option being made available for more sensitive shoppers.”
