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As an activist for LGBT rights in real life, I'm sorely disappointed that they're not allowing gay marriages from the get-go, but I can understand why they think they have to do it. Even though the US has made a lot of progress in even the last five years, there is still a sizable minority here that are against gay marriage.
There's still a lot of controversy in the US, and combined with how stunted the equality movement is in Japan, I can understand why Yoshi-P doesn't want this kind of publicity before the game has hit the shelves. He doesn't want this to become the only thing about his game that people are talking about.
That said, though, I think a lot of people are wrong to conflate Japan's dim view of marriage equality in real life with their view of homosexuality contained in the popular media like anime and manga and video games. There was no real backlash or outcry when a bug in Tomodachi Collection: New Life allowed male mii's to not only marry but also raise children. People even loved it and got the game solely because of it. Nintendo then quietly patched it out of the game.
Even when it was being discussed on the Japanese side of the beta forums, it didn't seem (from what I could gather) that they were much concerned with the moral implications as much as they were concerned with how it would affect the game's publicity.
I don't approve, but I can understand holding it off at least for now. If they decide against allowing it, though, you can bet I'll be first in the picket line.
There's still a lot of controversy in the US, and combined with how stunted the equality movement is in Japan, I can understand why Yoshi-P doesn't want this kind of publicity before the game has hit the shelves. He doesn't want this to become the only thing about his game that people are talking about.
That said, though, I think a lot of people are wrong to conflate Japan's dim view of marriage equality in real life with their view of homosexuality contained in the popular media like anime and manga and video games. There was no real backlash or outcry when a bug in Tomodachi Collection: New Life allowed male mii's to not only marry but also raise children. People even loved it and got the game solely because of it. Nintendo then quietly patched it out of the game.
Even when it was being discussed on the Japanese side of the beta forums, it didn't seem (from what I could gather) that they were much concerned with the moral implications as much as they were concerned with how it would affect the game's publicity.
I don't approve, but I can understand holding it off at least for now. If they decide against allowing it, though, you can bet I'll be first in the picket line.