Yesterday, the Entertainment Software Rating Board announced that Manhunt 2, the brutal survival horror game from Rockstar Games, would receive an Adults Only rating. (This followed the British Board of Film Classification refusing to grant the game a rating in the U.K., effectively banning it; the game has since also been banned in Ireland.) On its Web site, the ESRB describes the rating as follows:

Titles rated AO (Adults Only) have content that should only be played by persons 18 years and older. Titles in this category may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity.

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By comparison, a Mature-rated game is explained in the following manner:

Titles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language.

For publishers, this rating is considered a kiss of death, because many major retailers like Wal-Mart refuse to stock AO-rated games. It's especially problematic for console game publishers, because platform holders like Nintendo and Sony do not allow AO-rated games to be published on their machines. We reached out to Nintendo and Sony for comment; here's what they emailed back:

Sony Computer Entertainment America: Currently it's SCE's policy not to allow the playback of AO-rated content on our systems.

Nintendo of America: Games made for Nintendo systems enjoy a broad variety of styles, genres and ratings. These are some of the reasons our Wii and Nintendo DS systems appeal to such a broad range of people. But as with books, television and movies, different content is meant for different audiences. That's why the ESRB provides ratings to help consumers understand the content of a game before they purchase it. As stated on Nintendo.com, Nintendo does not allow any AO-rated content on its systems.

As confirmed by these statements, Manhunt 2--which was planned for the PlayStation 2, the PlayStation Portable, and, in what was a surprise at the time of the announcement, the Wii--cannot be shipped for any of its intended systems unless Rockstar either a) successfully appeals the AO rating and convinces the ESRB to change it to an M rating, or b) changes the content of the game, re-submits it to the ESRB and gets a M rating. Stay tuned.