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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
I would let my kids play most things that might get an "M" for violence, but not an "M" for drugs or sexual content.
if that isn't sarcasm, i find that outright hysterical.
abort, retry, fail?
playing a violent videogame DOES NOT MAKE YOU A VIOLENT PERSON.
Please stop yelling. Why are you so upset? Hey! Hey stop HITTING ME! Oh no! It's happening again! SOMEONE MAKE HIM STOP!
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I may just be overly pessimistic here, but I don't think Nintendo intends this feature to get used. If someone starts screaming at them that one of their "overly violent" video games caused their son to... I don't know, jump up and down on the family pet turtle... Nintendo could reply:
"How awful! We're very sorry that this violence made it through the hardware lock-out we have in place to let parents control this sort of thing. Your machine MUST be defective. Oh, wait, you WEREN'T using the lock-out? Even though we broadcast it as a feature on the front of our box, in the packaging, at initial start-up, on the instruction manual for the console, on the box of each game, and in the instruction manual for each game? Er... right. We'll let our lawyers take care of this."
...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
Because there weren't any fun rated-E games made for the xbox?
Actually, that wasn't meant as a flame or troll. I don't have an xbox but I've heard that kind of stuff about it. I'm asking because I don't know and you said there were obvious reasons it didn't get used. Is this what you were talking about?
I can imagine this being a great way for Nintendo to attract more adult gamers without losing those who think Nintendo systems are great for families.
How is this going to work for countries like New Zealand where we have our own ratings that are determined after publication? It can't be encoded on the disc for obvious reasons, and games are sometimes re-rated if published in Australia (e.g. they don't have an R18 rating, but NZ does. R18 games in Australia are banned. R18 games in NZ are restricted sale).
I didn't realize there were adult titles available for Nintendo systems. Or is this just in case someone, Microsoft or Sony, mayhaps, releases "Harry Potter Does Hermione," "Yugioh's Big Score" or "Mario gets High?"
I wonder how much less greif there'd be in online games if the Mature audiences only recommendation was followed.
Before entering the game, please answer the following multiple choice questions to verify your age:
1. '0wngae' is properly spelled:
A) '0wnage'
B) 'pwnage'
C) '0wn4g3'
D) That's not even a fucking word!
2. Girls are:
A) Gross
B) 4 teh sexx0ring!!!1
C) Not real
D) Not at all interested in me or my awesome gaming skills.
3. GNU/Linux is:
A) 4 teh haxx0rs!
B) OMFG WINDOWS IS BETTAR!
C) Full of SCO's intellectual property...give it back!
D) A free computer operating system.
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
can be played.
If the game won't work at dinner time/homework time, that would
be wonderful
When you input the password onto Xbox Live with the ABXYLR buttons, how will you enter the parent password onto the revolution? Rotate it around, throw it in the wall, punch and slash?
THIS IS THE INTERNET. PLEASE PICK UP YOUR SERIOUS BUSINESS SUIT AT THE FRONT COUNTER.
...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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