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New Parental Controls Limit Xbox Time
An anonymous reader writes "As part of a new marketing blitz to promote the Xbox 360 as a "family friendly" video game console, Microsoft on Wednesday rolled out a new feature called Family Timer, which will show up in the Family Settings Screen.
The Timer will let parents limit the number of hours their kids can play the Xbox on a daily or weekly basis. When the time limit is reached, the console will automatically shut off, ostensibly after saving the game."
Kid, don't get married. I'd rather negotiate playing time with the xbox than my wife ;)
In a very clever move by Microsoft, the indicator showing the console is on standby will be a lit red ring on the front of the unit...
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
My mother would love to have something like this on my father's computer. She calls Diablo II 'the divorce game'.
Aero
Please stop hurting America -- Jon Stewart
In my experience, the parents who would be responsible enough to use such a feature don't need it anyways.
I don't completely agree, this feature can help enforce a rule, or give more legitimacy to a decision, for example, instead of trying to estimate how long your offspring has spent on the console and going "Mmmh I think you've played enough of it for today. -But Dad?!?", you can agree with them on a weekly amount and when the time runs out, there's no "but I didn't even play it while you were at work" arguments or anything of the sort, the time you agreed on has unambiguously ran out, and there's nothing to argue about.
By the way that would also be cool if that thing prevented the Xbox from running from say 10:30pm to 6am.
You just got troll'd!
What if, say, I have some friends over and they take turns playing games, while I'm finishing up some homework before leaving to go to a party?
Nobody ever said that the parent can't turn them off. If that is indeed the case, then get your parents to turn off parental controls when you have friends coming over. Problem solved.
Secondly, I have never heard of a minor studying in another room before going to a party while his friends are playing his Xbox.
Getting the video game turned off without your consent is not going to make you go to your room and study -- it will make you very, very angry. Being the stubborn bastard that I was (and still am), I would not do my homework out of principle just to spite "the system". I would find a million-and-one other time wasters to avoid having to do homework.
Also, I used to watch cartoons and play the Super-Nintendo (I know, this dates me) when I got back from school, because my parents weren't there to watch over me. But when my parents got home, they started nagging at me to finish my homework, chores, etc... and I turned out alright.
While I think it's a relatively good idea, it speaks volumes about parental responsibility. Why parent when you can let a machine do it for you? Maybe a better system would be for the XBox to use its internet connection and SMS the parents periodically with usage statistics (for a monthly or yearly fee, of course), which would then prompt the parents to talk to the kids and make them turn off the game or whatever. Also, if the parent knows that all the homework is done or whatever, why not let the kid play? This system could be less intrusive for the kids, and it would put the control and parenting responsibility back onto the parents' shoulders.
Finally, is there some sort of hard reset on the XBox (like on routers) that would allow kids to bypass this feature? I don't have an XBox 360 so I'm not sure... anyone?
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine -- Robert C. Gallagher
Umm... I don't see why people are complaining about this feature. Is Microsoft preventing anyone from doing something in this case? No - if you want to use the feature do. If not, don't. I don't understand why others have to start complaining about the parenting habits of others when a company attempts to add a parenting feature to a product - don't you think they got feature requests first from parents before they got the idea to implement it?
Not to mention, if you're talking about responsible parenting - why even buy the XBOX in the first place?
There are people who would argue that responsible parenting would mean that you don't get them an XBOX (or TV for that matter). Or for that matter, have the child work part-time on their own so they can buy their own XBOX. The thing is, every parent has their own ideas on parenting, and as far as I know there have been no real studies evaluating the efficacy of various parenting techniques (not to mention that there probably are none - it depends on the child). So stop talking as if your ideas on parenting are the only correct ones.
I personally don't have kids, but if I did, I'd probably be happy that this feature existed. Additionally, I'd probably want the same option for the PC & TV.
Actual software quality aside, I'd hope Microsoft is using its experience with OSes to implement this sudden shutdown has a suspend-to-disk type operation (or suspend to RAM if all else fails) - many games aren't designed around constant save points, and if these things are going to throw away hours of hard-earned work, I can see tons more kids going postal in the future :/
I don't understand why there is so much distaste for giving parents tools for *enforcing* the policies they have put in place. Which of the following would you disagree with: 1) Locking gun cabinets. After all, parents can just tell their kids not to play with guns! 2) Keeping household chemicals out of reach of children. After all, parents can just tell their kids not to touch them! 3) Running corporate computers without any kind of limited user environment. Every one can be admin! After all, if you tell your users not to download the special pointers and smiley sets off the Internet, they never would, right? They're trustworthy adults! And the process of an IT admin busting an employee and then doing something about it is good for the employee, the IT admin, and good for the company! Seriously, *what* is wrong with making a parent's decisions enforceable by the software and hardware?
Posts like this getting modded insightful scare the shit out of me.
That's the problem with -all- measures to help out parents or to improve the life of kids.
Offer free health-checks, and the ones who -aren't- coming are the ones who'd be most in need of it.
Offer courses on child-nutrition, and the ones who show up are the ones that'd feed their kids sensibly even without the course.
Arrange a course in firts-aid, focused on the kinds of accidents children have the most often. And the ones who show up are the ones who already have half a clue.
Put recommended age on video-games, and the parents who actually take the time to know what their kids are playing and evaluate if it's apropriate for them or not, perhaps with help from the recommended age (but hopefully not by trusting it blindly) are precisely the same that'd probably make a reasonable decision even in the absence of recommended minimum age.
If only you'd read /. *before* buying the ring... ;P
so overheating and shutting off *is* a feature
When people ask if I'm an optimist, I say "I hope so". --Bill Bailey
Worse: it's completely accurate. make your pick: sex or computer games.