Sony is the latest console maker to announce parental controls for its platform, according to CNN. The new PS3 will join models from rivals Microsoft and Nintendo that allow parents to veto the machines’ ability to play rated video or games.
While the big three need to show that they’re doing something to avoid Government legislation or even law suits by parents whose kids have been “corrupted” by this material, I can’t help feeling that for most people, this is merely paying lip service to the problem. The vast majority of parents simply won’t understand how to activate the controls, even if they know about them in the first place. And I bet that someone somewhere finds a way to hack round the controls and the solution will be all over the net within a few months or weeks.
Even if that weren’t true, the kids will find ways to access material if they want to badly enough. I know my son plays GTA at friends’ houses, which we won’t allow him to own himself, as he’s only just 13. It’s not that we’re down on GTA especially, it’s just that there’s plenty of material of a similar rating that I do think he’s too young for. GTA is the thin end of the wedge.
All you can really do as a parent is keep the home free of this kind of stuff, by monitoring casually what they’re watching and playing and hope that this does the trick. But controls like Sony’s seem pointless apart from a few geeks who double as parents.
Sony’s not getting great press from bloggers, what with one thing and another, are they?
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