Family Settings
– Parental Controls
Each of the video game
consoles have a series of settings that
allow parents to limit what their children
can access in order to provide a safer
gaming experience. Many of
these settings are based on the ESRB
ratings.
ESRB
ratings
The Entertainment
Software Ratings Board (ESRB) was founded in
1994 to assign content ratings to computer
and video games. The rating
system is voluntary although almost every
game sold in North
America is rated as many retailers only
stock games that carry the
rating.
There are six ratings
categories that can be found on the front of
the video game box:
Also on the back of the
box there is a list of over 30 content
descriptors indicates potentially
inappropriate content. Some
examples are blood, violence, mature humor,
sexual themes, nudity, strong language, drug
use, etc.
Although an excellent
guide for parents, it is still recommended
that parents do their own research to find
if a game is appropriate for their
children.
Xbox 360 Family
Settings
The Xbox 360 is
generally known as a console marketed to the
mature gamer, while the Wii is marketed as a
friendly console with the PS3 being
somewhere in between. The Xbox
360 however has had a major push for
promoting their family settings in an
attempt to win some of the family
market.
The Xbox 360 Family
Settings allow parents to restrict games
based on their ESRB rating. It also
allows parents to restrict access to offline
movies based on the DVD movie ratings of R,
PG-13, PG and G. Movies
and games can be restricted both offline and
online over Xbox LIVE.
Family settings allow
parents to log in and set a password to
protect the settings.
LIVE settings allow
settings for letting kids play
online. It can be
set up so you can approve kids online
friends list, can restrict who they can
communicate with, decide who can see your
child’s gamer profile. It also
allows you to set who your child can see and
control who sees whether they are
online.
PS3 Parental
Controls
PS3 has password
protected settings for DVD’s and Blu-ray
movies. It also
includes a restriction level for games with
the lower the number the tighter the
restrictions.
Another setting allows
parents to disable the web browser
function.
It is strongly
recommended to make sure you change the
default password settings for added security
if you intend to implement the Parental
Controls.
Wii Parental
Controls
The Wii settings for
video games are based on the ESRB
ratings.
Like the PS3, the Wii
settings allow you to disable access to the
web browser and limit e-mail
access.
In addition, the
Parental Controls allow you to set up a pin
number to restrict purchases through the
Wii’s online service.
Although these Family
Settings and Parental Controls can do a
great job at limiting access to potentially
offensive and harmful material, but it still
does not replace an active parenting role in
communicating with their child and being
aware of what games and threats their child
is being exposed to.
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