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Nintendo Puts Emphasis On Parental Control
Gamespot is reporting that Nintendo will allow parents to control what games can be played on the Revolution based on game ratings and other factors. From the article: "The password-protected system will let parents set which rating categories are acceptable for their children, and prevent the system from running any software outside the approved range. The system is based on the Entertainment Software Ratings Board's industry standard ratings, and each game's rating will be encoded on each Revolution disc. Nintendo says the system will be instituted on every Revolution console worldwide, presumably utilizing the local ratings system of each region."
Actually put the responsibility Squarely at the feet of the parents , no fobbing it off to the government to pass legislation or even letting the "MORAL PANIC " groups start a witch burning .
Though I don't know how many parents will actually bother to read the Manuel and discover about this feature , or how quickly the child will find a way to reset the defaults .
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
As a game programmer as well as a parent, I think this is a really good idea. I think the public thinks that game developers want kids to buy all the violent or inappropriate games they can, but it's not true. People don't realize how many adult gamers are out there. Developers don't need or want kids to play violent or sexual games.
Game Company Database
...will parental control really help? I'll illustrate with an example. To stop us from watching TV, our parents would lock the TV up with parental control. Naturally, my brother and I began an intensive program of password cracking. Using intelligent brute-forcing, we cracked it on the fourth try. The number? 4444. Another example. My school locked its computer (yes, singular- there were onyl 120 students) with an administrator password. It took 2 minutes to crack it- we just rebooted into safe mode and changed the passwords. As long as kids are more tech-savvy than adults, "parental control" is a joke.
I wouldn't say that is pessimistic , more that is exactly to the point . Rightly so , Nintendo cover their own backs and also give parents the power and responsibility to control what content their children have ,Quid pro quo .
,or the games developer if the software is not tagged properly )
Nintendo may not intend it to get used , but if it is well label and explained then the fault rest solely with the parent (bar any bugs
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
can be played.
If the game won't work at dinner time/homework time, that would
be wonderful
...but the PS2's parental control system has a universal reset password clearly printed in the manual. Now call me crazy, but I think more kids read these manuals than parents. I have fond memories of my dad going crazy trying to set up the NES.
I strongly doubt any parental control system will be particularly "stronger" than the PS2's either. People forget passwords, especially when they only use it once on Christmas day. Unless Nintendo wants a lot of dead boxen out there, there'll be some sort of back door, so the system won't be very deterent to the determined, and by "determined" I mean "taking three seconds to Google it".
But seriously, why would anyone want this feature to work anyway? Parents presumably buy their kids games, or at least live in the same damn house. Paying attention to what your kids are doing will always be more effective than trying to regulate it with some machine.
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