FYI, the licensing issue is that Irem is close to closing it's doors and I believe that they have sold some of their licenses including R-Type. I have heard that the R-Type games have been pulled from PSN already.
Also, I wouldn't want to buy the Sega Master System version of R-Type considering that the superior Turbo-Grafx 16 version is still currently available. If anyone is wondering, there are a total of 4 R-Type games available currently on the VC, which are: R-Type (TGFX-16), R-Type (SMS), Super R-Type (SNES), R-Type III: The Third Lightning (SNES).