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Nintendo Businesses Entertainment Games

Nintendo Puts Emphasis On Parental Control 98

Posted by Zonk from the big-brother-is-your-dad dept.
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."
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Nintendo Puts Emphasis On Parental Control More

Nintendo Puts Emphasis On Parental Control

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  • A little late. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by skyman8081 ( 681052 ) <skyman8081@nOsPAM.gmail.com> on Wednesday November 16, 2005 @06:31PM (#14047869) Homepage
    The Xbox has had this feature in it from the start. It just didn't get much use, for obvious reasons.
    • "A little late. The Xbox has had this feature in it from the start."

      A little late for what? Dinner date?

    • Re:A little late. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by LoverOfJoy ( 820058 ) on Wednesday November 16, 2005 @06:55PM (#14048059) Homepage
      It just didn't get much use, for obvious reasons.

      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.

    • This seems like a reasonable feature, but what parent have you ever seen pick up a controller for a console to do anything with it. The problem is that parents aren't monitoring their children when they play games, or that they just aren't tech-savvy enough to try to utilize a feature like this (IMO). Even with such a feature, I'm sure kids will somehow outsmart parents or bypass it one way or another.
      • My dad (44) routinely picks up a controller and plays Madden, Mario (Golf|Baseball|Tennis), and some other games that tickle his fancy. Granted, he's not quite "old", but I would take it that he's older than quite a few parents nowadays.

  • Now there is a good idea (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) * <.fidelcatsro. .at. .gmail.com.> on Wednesday November 16, 2005 @06:31PM (#14047871) Journal
    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 .

    • Re:Now there is a good idea (Score:4, Insightful)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Wednesday November 16, 2005 @06:57PM (#14048071) Homepage Journal
      "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 ."

      I'm more worried about fuss over whether or not the games were rated properly. Part of me wants to be optimistic that this sort of control does take a lot of the headache out of the equation, the other part says ppl will expect 'safety' that cannot be realistically attain so they'll bitch bitch bitch and sue.

      I hate being torn on this issue. On the one hand, I think that parents could use a little more help in working out what content the games, on the other hand I don't want to do that at the cost of vigilance. The latter issue I wouldn't mind so much, but NOBODY is willing to admit they didn't do something right with their kid. Man is that a taboo.
      • I believe it could be done properly quite easily , so long as their is an easy tagging system and developers implement the tags along the guidelines of the ESRB (assuming the ESRB does not screw up). Naturally for perfect results you would need to test everything out for your children , I am sure nintendo will have a disclaimer stating such .
        If all goes according to plan , then the fault should rest either with the parents of the ESRB if there are any screw ups .
        • "..assuming the ESRB does not screw up.."

          You screw ONE goat...

          • That's halarious...

            Okay, I don't understand the context of why you are saying that, or if there is a context. Doesn't matter. I had a freind in high school nicknamed 'John is Dumb.' He had this old yellow '70s Ford. On the back was a bumper sticker that read, "Goat rapers need love too" with a picture of a goat.

            Cheers!

            • It was based on an old joke which probably isn't as well known as I hoped. ;)

              An American was backpacking across the highlands, when he came across a small village where he decided to spend the night.

              Upon entering the local pub that evening for some drinks with the locals, he found himself in a conversation with one particularly drunk and indignant individual.

              "Ya see that fence out there?" The old man asked the backpacker. "I built that fence with me own hands. But ya think they call me MacGregor the f

    • How much you want to bet there is a reset password to default button somewhere on the system? Thus rendering this parental control useless for kids that are somewhat bright.
      • As always, this comes back to parents having some vigilance. There were parental controls on the cable box at my house. I figured out how to reset the password. My parents figured out that the password was reset. I figured out that non-naked TV was better than no TV, at least until I could go to a friend's house whose parents didn't check on such things.
    • I just bought a brand spanking new LCDTV. Of course, as I'm accustomed, a good 1/4 of the manual was dedicated to the V-Chip function. Never mind explaining how the Clock/Phase on the VGA input works. Anyway I have *never*, and I mean *ever* met *anyone* who used the (mandatory in the U.S.) V-chip.

      My personal favorite? If you forget the parental code for the unit, you must put in the 'secret' code. Which is, I shit you not, 0 ... 0 ... 0 ... 0. See the documentation [westinghousedigital.com] (page 26 of the PDF).

  • Good Idea (Score:4, Insightful)

    by csbrooks ( 126129 ) on Wednesday November 16, 2005 @06:32PM (#14047879) Homepage
    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.

    • Re:Good Idea (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Somatic ( 888514 )
      Yup. One of the biggest excuses parents have for their children watching R-rated movies, and doing other things kids aren't supposed to do, is that they can't watch their kids 24 hours a day. Well, that password will watch their Revolution 24 hours a day. I like it. It gives people one less reason to complain about the game industry.
  • The ESRB makes me sad. How about giving Violence, Drugs, etc. different ratings? I would let my kids play most things that might get an "M" for violence, but not an "M" for drugs or sexual content. I seriously hopes that Nintendo rethinks this.
    • Hey, glad you're on here. Your kids beat the living crap out of me again.

      -Your neighbor
      • Honestly, playing a violent videogame DOES NOT MAKE YOU A VIOLENT PERSON. If that were true, I'd probably be in jail at the moment. I just wouldn't want my kids exposed to things like drugs at an early age (I'm talking 9-10 here).

        • Re:ESRB.... :( (Score:5, Funny)

          by csbrooks ( 126129 ) on Wednesday November 16, 2005 @06:42PM (#14047952) Homepage

          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!

        • Re:ESRB.... :( (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Honestly, playing a videogame that involves drugs DOES NOT MAKE YOU AN ADDICT. If that were true, I'd probably be in jail at the moment. I just wouldn't want my kids exposed to things like violence at an early age (I'm talking 9-10 here).

        • Honestly, playing a violent videogame DOES NOT MAKE YOU A VIOLENT PERSON. If that were true, I'd probably be in jail at the moment.

          I don't think anyone is honestly saying that playing a lot of violent video games will make you even like 20% more likely to kill/hurt someone. If that were true, we'd have an unbelievable number of shootings and cop murders by white upper-middle class males.

          You clearly don't see that, so the proponents of legislation or other government intrusion must think that games incr

    • Hm I would rather they play games with (mild) sexual references and drug use before violence , but the idea is a good one that should be implemented.
      On a slight side note , Violence did occasionally upset me when I was young , though the only time sex on TV made me uneasy was when the parents were around .
    • 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.
    • but not an "M" for drugs or sexual content.

      Whats wrong with drugs and having sex?

      Unless your having sex for drugs... Then it tends to be shady.

      • Well, realistic violence is incredimbly disturbing, but most games have very cartoonish violence. I don;t know of any games rated M because of sexual content, but I can imagine it would be mor elikly to be portrayed realistically, thus keeping it further from the realm of un-reality.

        OK, I lie, the stupedist, most cartoony sex I have seen portrayed in a while got a game an AO rating, so I am full of shit, but still a system like that would let me make the choice anyway.

        I would personally like a way to lock
    • And the simple solution is to lock out all M rated games, and make them ask you for permission to boot one of your "approved" M rated games when they wish to play it. That way you are aware of how often they play (some of) their games, or whether they're playing it with friends whose parents would object to M for violence.
    • Ignorance, blame shifting and kneejerk criticism make me sad. The very second sentence on the front page of their website, accompanied by a fairly painfully obvious explanatory graphic:

      ESRB ratings have two parts: rating symbols that suggest what age group the game is best for, and content descriptors that indicate elements in a game that may have triggered a particular rating and/or may be of interest or concern.

      The image in question (since I obviously can't embed it): Embedded rating example [esrb.com]. The exampl

  • What you really need... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by xenocide2 ( 231786 ) on Wednesday November 16, 2005 @06:37PM (#14047918) Homepage
    is non-parental control. I wonder how much less greif there'd be in online games if the Mature audiences only recommendation was followed.

    • Re:What you really need... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Frodo Crockett ( 861942 ) on Wednesday November 16, 2005 @10:34PM (#14049285)
      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.
    • You act like you don't like being called the N-Word over and over again every time you are killed by someone with a high-pitched voice.

      But for real, overt parental control is a step in the right direction, but the problem will never be solved because people will continue to be stupid, parents and children alike. Perhaps something akin to Leisure Suit Larry 1's age verification trivia is in order?

  • The question is... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ozymand E. Us ( 931598 ) on Wednesday November 16, 2005 @06:49PM (#14048005)
    ...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.
    • Whether it is a joke or not is irrelevant. This is Nintendo playing a very good game of CYA. Parents have the option of setting these limits, and as long as Nintendo provides the tools and instructions on how to use them, they can find their way out of any potentially dangerous situations.

      "Those parental controls that are installed, and referred to in the manual... did you use those to keep little Billy from playing our Rated-M games? Either of those games? No? You didn't bother setting a password? Not o
    • You cracked the administrative password to your elementary school's computer? If you were talking middle or high school, that's another story. For me, the v-chip is mostly useful for my 8 year old son. He can flip through the channels on Saturday morning without accidentally coming across something I wouldn't like him watching.

      Of course some kids will figure out how to bypass parental controls no matter what they are (some kids will steal their parents credit cards and go on a shopping spree) but that doe

      • wow sorry to say this but you must have been a very dull kid.
      • Personally, when I was 10 I wouldn't have tried to get my parents to buy me a rated-M game (if they had the rating system back then). In fact, I'd probably be happy that I could blame my parents and their parental controls if my friend came over with a rated-M game and was unable to play it.

        I dunno... I was exposed to allot of x-rated material and violent media as a kid (playing Doom and watching the spice channel etc) but it didn't harm me one bit as turning out to be a psycho.

        Actually, I tend to be more a
      • Sheltering kids from what is out there does not help. My parents tried to shelter me and it did not do any good at all. I am 20 now working as a technical analyst making more than most people with a college degree do and you know what? I still dont talk to my parents. Hiding me from the world did no good at all and while it is one thing to hide porn from your 8 year old it is another to stop a 14 year old. How many right wing ultra-conservative christian parents do you think are going to try and stop th

    • Re:The question is... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by 88NoSoup4U88 ( 721233 ) on Wednesday November 16, 2005 @09:40PM (#14049028)
      ...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.

      My parents were actually -there- to kick me outside and the TV never got turned on before 7 o' clock.

      How's THAT for parental control. Don't need no fancy widgets or passwords : Just parent(s) that are actually checking up on their kids once and awhile.

      • While you should feel grateful that you grew up in a family who had the luxury of being there to parent you, unfortunately many of todays children do not have that luxury.

        In many families both parents work long hours, and the children are left to themselves for entertainment. This is a way for parents to exert some control even though they may not be able to be there physically to do so.

        • In many "families" there's only one parent, who needs to park the kid in front of TV or video games just so they have time to cook them dinner and do their laundry. (This was part of how I was raised, although mostly I watched PBS.)
    • That post reminds me of two things I've forgot about over the years:

      When I was young there was some protection scheme on our C-Band satellite dish receiver. I could never guess the password, but one night it came to me in a dream. The next night I snuck out and tested my dream number (2589, BTW). What followed was a night of watching glorious, muted porn. (I'm on to you dad!) It must run in the family, because one time my brother awoke from a dream and somehow knew the password to get to the last le
    • So what you're saying is, it's Nintendo's fault that your parents are too lazy to come up with a reasonably adequate password? These things aren't rocket science. Your parents, I assume, have a mac machine card. They have a dialup account. They have a password at the bank. They didn't let people into the secret fort without the password as kids. It's not like this is the first generation to have passwords. Ask your parents or grandparents what the phrase "shave and a haircut, six pence" actually mean

  • WHOAH! Hold up, there! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As a shoddy attorney who makes his fame and fortune blaming the gaming industry for society's ills, I must strongly protest anything that puts power and responsibility in the hands of other parties.

    Who can I sue if the parents do a poor job raising their children? That's right, either the child or the parents. They don't have any money! We must keep all the responsibility where all the money is: centralized, in the hands of corporations. Decentralized authority only serves to keep the money away from me
    • I know the parent comment is a farce and it's kinda funny, but I heard something about this kind of stuff the other day. Something about a guy named Stephen Reinholt. This guy is some insane judge over on the west coast. I heard some statistic that somewhere around 9/10 or even higher of this guy's decisions are overturned by the supreme court.

      Last week or so some parents wanted to take legal action against a school district that was forcing their child to learn about sex in some way the parents didn't

  • Ratings after publication? (Score:5, Informative)

    by meowsqueak ( 599208 ) on Wednesday November 16, 2005 @07:11PM (#14048163)
    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).
    • My guess is that Nintendo will have a default rating system used for countries that either don't have a system or have a system that would be difficult to implement.
    • It would be simple enough to have play back on unrated games restricted until the parents enter the game rating into the system. Parents could simply allow or disallow a specific game and this would be saved in the system.
    • You'll do what every little country eventually does - cave in and and pick up standards used by the US or EU.
    • If your local Nintendo branch will bother with it you'll see customized ratings but knowing NAL you'll most likely just end up with a system using the PEGI ratings for that.
      • Branch? Nintendo have branches?! In that case my 'local' one is a 3 hour jet flight to Sydney I suspect....
        • They have subsidiaries, Nintendo of America (NoA), Nintendo of Europe (NoE), Nintendo of Australia Ltd (NAL) and I think they even have one for New Zealand. The japanese main part is usually referred to as NCL (Nintendo Co Ltd). I'm not privvy with all that business stuff so I don't know if branches is the right word for those.
    • Who cares? It will block things that are overly mature for your children. If it gets rated differently then you unlock the access so the kid can play that game. If it is rated more mature than the ESRB, then you don't buy it for your kid. This is supposed to help parents out, not replace parents from taking an active role in their children's life.
  • This sounds like fun. Buying a used Revolution? Uh-oh. What if someone locked it? Sounds like a fun prank to do before trading in a system. Speaking of pranks, letting your friend play your system? You better watch them like a hawk, otherwise they might try to be funny and lock your system. But seriously, Nintendo better include a way to reset the password to the factory defaults. Of course, opening the system and shorting something would work, but I mean something less drastic.

  • Adult Titles? (Score:3, Funny)

    by triso ( 67491 ) on Wednesday November 16, 2005 @07:36PM (#14048327) Homepage
    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?"
    • It's not necessarily adult, but I've got some GameCube games that I wouldn't want my hypothetical young son playing.

      Resident Evil (and its many sequels)
      Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
      Killer 7

      Some of us would look to keep our kids from being exposed to guns and blood in their entertainment.

      • One problem is that some parents are stuck-up and won't let a 12-year-old play Super Smash Bros. Melee just because it was rated T in an era when E10+ didn't exist. (The original Super Smash Bros., which had approximately the same amount of fantasy violence, was rated E.) These parents are often unwilling to watch a video of the game to evaluate if it is appropriate for a given child or to consider foreign ratings of the game (SSBM was rated the equivalent of E in most other countries); they put so much fa

        • Easy, define the rating as a floating point number on the disc. Then in hardware if rating>whatever, don't run the game. for the rating system you define:

          E=1, T=2, M=3
          becomes
          E=1, E10+=1.5, T=2, M=3

          You could also implement new ratings systems in firmware.
    • Conker's Bad Fur Day. Violence, Language, Substance Abuse, and Sexual Innuendo. Great game too.

  • Its only as good as you use it to be. My XBox media center (yes, modded) has a "parental control", you just hit 'x' and accept that its a high level. Same for my roommate's (unmodded) PS2. Put in a high rated DVD, and whomever the first person to turn on the system is, sets the password.

    Now, if you give a kid this for christmas, who's more likely to be the first to turn it on?

  • The ESRB was formed back in the 16-bit era, so why is this only now being implemented? In retrospect, it's blindingly obvious, isn't it? I mean, even the PS2 has a parental lock out-- for DVDs. (This was a total pain in the ass in my experience, since my friend couldn't figure out how to turn his off, but whatever.) So, why didn't Sony take that extra step and also do ESRB lockouts? Is there any explanation for it that doesn't make the game industry look either absent minded or greedy?

    • Yes, there is. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by MeanderingMind ( 884641 )
      Is there any explanation for it that doesn't make the game industry look either absent minded or greedy?

      Having been a child in those days, I believe I can answer this question.

      The answer is yes.

      Parents, even now, will have their own movies. Being adults, they would have adult movies. These aren't movies for junior, these are movies for mom and dad.

      However, kids being kids, they'll find some way to reach you movies if they want to (barring you locking them up in a safe). Making it important to ha

  • Another good idea (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Polo ( 30659 ) * on Wednesday November 16, 2005 @10:52PM (#14049371) Homepage
    ...Limit the amount of time and/or time of day when games
    can be played.

    If the game won't work at dinner time/homework time, that would
    be wonderful :)

    • Not to troll, but I think it's better to have your kid(s) understand that you are setting the limits, that you are enforcing them as well.

      It's important that they learn to make the right decision, and not have automated restrictions on their behavior control them... otherwise, what happens when the restrictions are removed?

      Although, since constant monitoring is neither possible nor desirable, there's got to be a way to limit their time. My kids use a windows box, perhaps timed access for each userid?

  • Password input? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Bega ( 684994 ) on Thursday November 17, 2005 @01:45AM (#14050071) Homepage Journal
    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?

  • I'm not sure about the others... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kuukai ( 865890 ) on Thursday November 17, 2005 @04:38AM (#14050555) Journal
    ...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.
    • 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".

      True, but the Revolution could email whoever set the password in the first place letting them know that it has been reset.

      That'll prevent little billy from deactivating the password.

      Secondly, parental controls have been available in TVs and DVD players for quite a while now, and people haven't had a lot
  • ...kids being "more tech-savvy" than parents is indeed an "issue" for parental controls, but the solution is parents need to be just plain interested in their children and what they're spending their time doing. Simply put, a well-chosen password of reasonable length and character combination just won't be guessed. However, I know what MY response to this type of parental control would have been: resentment and embarrassment (when friends come over and you have to call "HEY MOM! CAN YOU COME ENTER THE PA
    • I strongly agree that the current ratings model is overly simplistic. I'd rather have my hypothetical kids seeing jokes about sex than cutting off people's heads and whatnot, although I don't think either one is likely to cause long-term problems. Not giving your children the information they need to distinguish fantasy from reality is the real root problem.
  • Systems like this are only useful if parents actually know what the ratings are and what they mean. For example, Timmy wants KillTron 9000 for Christmas this year. KillTron 9000 has 65% better gore physics than its prequel KillTron 8500. Every other kid on the block knows this, Timmy knows this, but Mom and Dad don't know this. All Mom and Dad know is that Timmy wants this game more that life itself. And what do most parents do? If mine were any example, they buy the little brat the game he wants to make

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