Really? Aren't you afraid of the affect your lazy, authoritarian parenting style will have on your child's development? I guess not.

strathmeyer

wraith808

L_K_M

L_K_M

But it all seriousness, a solution which makes the child accountable for their time is much better. If they take advantage they lose the privilege. the game system gets locked up.

Uglyshoe

If little Timmy doesn't want his mom to know he played Manhunt 2, all he has to do is open the Mii Channel 15 times for less than a minute each and then it won't list what else was played after that, just how long that crap was played.

It would be better if everything was listed on there with total time played, and if it was played multiple times for multiple amounts of time, you can select it for full information on when it was played, how long it was played, and how many times.

Deozaan

Puhgete

Puhgete

L_K_M

Can somebody test that out?

RotBot

vizual3y3z

I would assume then that you could set a daily limit, for like 8hrs and then while your kid is playing, you can just ask to them to bring up the guide so you can see how long they've played that day.

Ofcourse you could also just ask them if they've finished their chores/homework at that time, if not off goes the game/system.

Also, having the timer doesn't keep you from setting a shorter time limit. Set the timer to 8hrs a day and ask the kid to only play for like 4.

Puhgete

Puhgete

L_K_M

Puhgete

Apart from that, I find it interesting that parents would use something like the timer (or things like Internet filters or Internet timers). Whatever happened to actually interacting with your children? Telling them to stop playing and go to bed is too fucking hard, or what?

While I know my parents wouldn't have used these child control features, I'm glad I grew up before they became so commonplace.

L_K_M

No, it's far easier to just have the box tell them when to stop playing.

Sqube

Ptolemy

OH!

it is to BURN!

you guys should seriously pay me to comment

i'll leave a work of art like this on every story you post

108

thanius

If the child cannot disobey by design, there is no opportunity to mess up, and no opportunity to learn self control, because that self control has been taken away, in my opinion.

Zunnoab

Herc

As it stands, I think the Wii is the only console that has a working way for the parents to regulate gaming time.

dowingba

CyberSkull

wow, that post clicked on so many levels.

*applauds*

very good comment and you sound like an amazing parent.

NeoAkira

You're aware that Microsoft has a history of the most recently played games profiles gives you more information and is like a catalog of any game that's ever been run on the 360.
...
I honestly don't even believe the idea that parents cant use the parental tools; parents are just fucking lazy these days. When I have kids and I can't use electronics... I damn well wont be handing it to my kids to use.

okenny :)

As far as the two methods, neither work. Passwords are meant to block, but they only work to deter. Every password can be cracked, even if it's near impossible. The Wii Play history is not very user friendly. You've gotta know to go to the messages and read these things.

A timer wouldn't stop a resourceful kid. A play history wouldn't stop a resourceful kid. Taking away controllers wouldn't stop a resourceful kid.

As mentioned time and time again, this kind of thing just whittles down to trust and maturity. Parents need to instill these values in a child. The Microsoft controls don't teach this to children, it just makes them pissed because they can't play anymore. The Nintendo way teaches kids to make their own choices, but it doesn't stop the kids from doing anything. Both consoles can't teach your kids and can't stop your kids. A parent is the one who needs to step in and teach their children it's not okay to play certain types of games, it's not okay to play excessively, and play only comes after work.

No amount of parental controls can help this, only parent to child communication.

blackcanoflysol

Anemone

JohnnytheFuture

It's very much like an American product to do a job "for the parent", whereas in the case of the Wii, the assumption is that parents should A) be unaware and therefore apathetic, B) be aware/knowledgeable yet still not care, or C) be technologically well-versed and enforce limits on their children.

The assumption of the creators of the Wii was that parents are responsible enough to monitor their children. This is an assumption that (in an ideal world) should be made by all critics of the video game industry.

JohnnytheFuture

I usually play once a week and spend 8 hours playing a game all in one day. It is hard for me to pick up a game and then put it down. I can not play games for such short periods very well. Imagine playing WoW for 2 hours a day only. You could get nothing done. I would rather play less in a week for a longer period than to play more in short bursts day by day.

Nintendo method also lets you check if the kid was playing a game he was not allowed to.

AzureDrag0n1

Evil Tortie's Mom

These ideas are not contradictory, I think it would be much better if we gave parents a little more choice.

Morberis

I don't make rules for them to be followed -- for my kids to obey me "because I said so" or "because I'm their parent". After 18 years, they don't have to obey me, and there's no relationship in adult life that requires obedience for the sake of obedience. The point of my rules is to highlite bad habits/behavior. The point is that my kids will break the rules, see the consequences off breaking those rules, and realize that "Dad was right...again". As the cycle repeats time and time again, my kids internalize my wisdom and "my rules" become "their rules" -- things they'll actually follow as an adult because it's logical, not because "Dad said so".

I'd rather my kids game too much as children and realize the consequences of bad grades when they don't really matter than do well in K-12 and then fail college because they're too busy playing WoW and didn't setup a timer to kick them off after a few hours.

Having the best kids in the world is pointless if they turn out to be terrible adults. K-12 grades don't matter after college. The fact that your kids cleaned their rooms every weekend for 18 years doesn't matter in 30 years, etc. The wisdom behind the rules are the key, not the mechanical act of following them.

misterthou

cheeseboybeans

RawSteelUT

RawSteelUT

Bokusatsu_Tenshi

Gregumm

My opinion on this is that a play-timer treats the symptoms, but not the disease. I believe it yields great short-term results, but I would rather teach my children responsibility than to bend them to my will (although, I suppose there's little difference between the two, for some). Not that it's the best way to raise children, just the one I prefer.

The play-history is something that I might actually use, but I would never bother with a timer.

shimage

Another sort of related thing. Why can't they have the little image that popped up on the cube system menu pop up when you stick a cube game in?

Mrobinson587

Strangelove

Puhgete

Puhgete

A timer, as in the 360, show the child how long they have to play and warns them when the time is runing out and gives them the opportunity to ask a parent/guardian to allow them more time to finish their level or whatever.

irnchriz

fuchikoma

@vizual3y3z: Right. I think you really have to change as your child does. And I know several parents who could probably use a refresher in what being a good parent is. I think if you manage to instill some of that responsibility into them at a younger age, they won't be as radical once they hit their teenage years. Sure, they're going to do stuff you probably don't want them to, but at the very least they'll do those things with a bit of personal restraint.

Ampillion = That Man.

CarbonatedWater

vizual3y3z

If you look at that the gamer's history and see that they've spent too much time playing you have a talk with them.

If you set a reasonable time limit and the gamer hits it, they'll come to you and you have a talk with them.

Either way you help them build good habits.

Puhgete

I like the Wii's Play History because I don't have to DO ANYTHING. The simplest answer always involves doing nothing.

KingBroly

I like the idea inherent in the Nintendo system that the proper way to handle regulating your child's gaming time is to keep an active, two-way dialog open about it. Parents should be interested in their child's activities at least to the point of knowing when a certain hobby is becoming a bad habit.

With either system, a parent can take away the game disk, the console itself, and maybe even the television it gets played on if it proves too distracting. I'm sure some parents have had to do this before! But in my opinion, it's better to allow a game system to also be a lesson in responsibility. Time must be managed between chores, studying and play as a child (and some of that play should be the healthy, "active" kind--and I'm not talking Wii Fit!). Similar time management decisions will exist all through that child's life, so why not use the video game console as a starting point for an important life lesson?

DZeroStar

RoboSheep

Content of said games should never really be an issue, most likely you're the one as the parent buying or renting it for them, so you already have control over that. Just having the game in a common room of the house, and your risk of them bringing in something you don't want them to play is reduced.

Again, I think a hard lock on the system would be more for the younger kids than the older ones. I'd much rather instill some personal responsibility in them to watch their game time than merely have a killswitch that does it for them. Not to mention if it locked me out at a bad time, I'd be a bit put out, why would I want to do that to my kid?

As I said prior though, every parent has their own style, and every parent's kid is not the same. So what might work best for one might not work at all for another.

Ampillion = That Man.

PriorMarcus

In fact, when MS first announced the "Parental Timer" thing, people thought they'd nicked the idea from there!!

Jayenkai

But I really don't see what the 360 is missing:

They have the played games list if you want to see what games they're playing, if your worried about them playing violent or explicit stuff. They even let you limit access to these games if you desire.

They have a daily or weekly time limit if you want to use it plus you don't even have to set it to a small amount of time if you want. If you want you could set it to 40hrs a week that way you can just prevent major gaming marathons and tell them that they've had enough for the day like you normally would.

Puhgete

My original comment was more along the lines of, while that's alright for small things, I don't think it's wise to actually encourage those sorts of things in any way, else they might do that with things you wouldn't want them getting into at all.

So long as you aren't a bad parent though, most likely you'd figure those things out before they did become a real problem.

Ampillion = That Man.

Sustenance

IrisMR

Now, once they hit teenage years, well, good luck with anything at that point.

Ampillion = That Man.

MysticDragon8907

Setzer IIDX

Ampillion = That Man.

Also, having a timer a weekly timer helps parents fairly judge the amount of time jr spends gaming. Sometimes parents can get the impression that their kids are playing all day everday but an honest kid could always show that they haven't spent all of their time because they haven't been locked out for the day or week.

Puhgete

Deus Ex Machina

baked ham

Ampillion = That Man.

TheTea

I think its pretty obvious that they put it in there for monitoring purposes. Thats the very first thing I thought when I started looking at the play history page.

DimensionWarped

Setzer IIDX

As much as it might seem "above and beyond normal deceit", the kid could easily deny it and if the parents were ignorant of the methods you mentioned, they'd have no reason not to believe it. The fact is, they aren't going to know about that unless they are again, already willing and involved in what their children are doing or at the very least, knowledgable about modern child protection systems... which usually means they are probably gamers to start with.

DimensionWarped

vizual3y3z

hdovesn

360 passcodes really aren't all that secure.

seishino

My daughter is too young to play right now but I have to say that the 360 seems to have the best controls. If I just want to see what she's been playing I can. If I want to limit access to mature games I can. If I want to limit the amount of time she plays per day or per week, I can.

Puhgete

You call it creepy and overbearing, I call it parents doing their job.

The automatic shutdown thing is just another means of helping parents seat the kid in front of something for X-amount of time.

"Okay jr, you can play XBox until it turns itself off. Then go to bed."

vs.

"Okay jr, you can play XBox for an hour and then it's time for bed."

While some aspects of parental controls are nice...parents these days seem to be leaning on them more and more as further means of raising their kids. Now the machine will control what they can see, read, and do, so you don't have to worry about providing guidance and (god forbid) enforcement.

TRT-X

The_Analyst

Good parents don't need a log to figure out how much their kids play. My parents could tell when I was lying about something and knew what I was up to with nothing more complicated than knowing me well and basic logic about how kids would rather do something they like than homework or whatever. They talked to me in an era without parental controls, and, against all possible odds, I turned out ok. Though, to be fair, I was lucky, because if I'd ever played counterstrike, I'd be a into double digit serial killer territory.

To go on ad nauseum, companies aren't your friends. Nintendo doesn't care about you, it is not trying to make your life better. It is selling a product, and if it happens to be good for you, then that's a coincidence. The whole Wii Fit doesn't make you fit thing is a great reminder of that. They include these features because parents who *don't* need, them, who are, in fact, armpit deep up their kid's asses monitoring what they do and trying to figure out how they can have their brains transferred into their young, supple bodies, crave any suggestion that there might be an aspect of their childs life over which they do not have an absolute death-grip. There's two phases to your kid's development. The phase where he's in the living room doing stuff where you can see, and tell him to stop and do homework or go outside, and the phase where you decide he's old enough to be in his room with his own phone, computer, tv, internet connection, and whatever else. You make that decision when you buy the thing and put it in his room, not afterwards, when it's 4 am, and you can hear him bitching about how hard it is to get an epic mount.

deathbunny

I'm not saying the Nintendo way is bad. I just think when it comes to enforcing the rules a parent sets down the MS model does it better.

Tull

P-Sheddy

They never mentioned that it was suppose to be or also used for this purpose in any of their parent information fliers on the Wii, nor was it mentioned in any marketing information.

parad0x360

Not only did they break whatever rule you had in place, they went above and beyond normal deceit to do it. At that point the system stays hooked up but the controllers come with me to work.

parad0x360

In practice though Microsoft's solution is probably better. Many parents out there would probably be too lazy or not care enough to check up on their kid's play history and discuss their playtime. Microsoft's solution is the easy way out.

kojirodensetsu

If they had true controls I wouldnt have been able to do anything on it.

Im not saying either method is wrong or bad. Im saying from my point of view, which is the view for a 20+ year gamer and a parent of a 7 year old boy who is quickly turning into a gamer, that having controls that can quickly and easily lock out not only content but time spent playing is a great idea.

@hungry_for_worms: You are right on that one. You can also check on those 360 blog sites that say what you played that day and I think it also sometimes mentions how long you played.

parad0x360

Ok seriously now, I think Nintendo came up with a good solution as long as parents really look at it and communicate with their kids about what they're playing.

kryzhal

DimensionWarped

Tull

Indrajit

Tull

dowingba

I think parents of my age of even just slightly older know enough about gadgets they buy for their homes more than what people here give them credit for.

Tull

Setzer IIDX

Then again i would have hated to have my parents look at my webhistory too lol. So I'm just on the side with the least control.

TheHun

So kids with an Xbox are just turning off the timer and then turning it back on before Mom and Dad come home, whereas Wii kids are screwed if they play longer than they're supposed to.

dowingba

Spiderbait

just go to ther achievement list and oyu can see which games theyve played.

hungry_for_worms

The Nintendo interface is cumbersome and difficult to use, even for me, someone who works with computers for a living. I think that any parent who would use it is involved enough that limiting play time isn't an issue. Parental controls are for when you have a child who regularly circumvents your will. Of course, I'm not a parent, so this is wild conjecture.

Minor grammar quibble, Mark: "lest child-trusting approach" should be "less hild trusting approach."

beeporama (brian.j.parker)

If a parent has the ability to set the timer then they will be able to check up on the play list (which i'm assuming that the 360 doesn't have). If the parent has the technical ability to do neither then both controls are ineffective.

The real solution is to not let the child have a console in a place where it cannot be monitored. When i was young, my consoles were always in the living room and (i'm perhaps lucky in this respect) my mum was there in the house to monitor my activities after school. If i played too much she would stop me.

I think i prefer the play list as, the child knows they can play any time but chooses to agree not to. This places more responsibility on the child and as a result will make the child grow to respect decisions surrounding their life to some extent.

Having a blanket 'NO!' response by setting a timer (though in some cases it is definitely needed - even though i would say remove the console! instead) doesn't teach the child anything except that you stomped your foot down and didn't really explain it so well.... Plus, kids are smart. They might be able to circumvent your tiemr and the parent would never know if they didn't take the time to monitor them - which i presume they wouldn't be doing (perhaps through no fault of the parents) if they believed that the timer was set....

There's no right or wrong answer.

Duoae

exkon

Too many things now make it seem like its a bad thing for a parent to enforce the rules. Instead making everything become a sit-down and talk. Those are great ways to teach a child responsibility but also enforcing the rules shouldn't be seen as a bad thing.

Tull

my parents were always aware of how much time i logged in front of the tv and on video games and if i exceeded their predetermined limits, it was taken away.

my kids, if and when i have them, will have the same rules. i hate the idea of there not being enough trust between parent and child (and the idea of the game just switching off when they're in the middle of something).

as always though, if kid doesn't listen, xbox goes away or you can always use that fall back threat that my dad popularized.

"if you don't stop playing games right now i'm going to throw the whole damn thing out the window."

it never came to that but it was way scarier than taking away dessert or sending me to my room;).

PGGB

P-Sheddy

JustJake

If parents are aware of the parental controls on Xbox360 and are able to use the time limiter, it shouldn't be any harder to check the Wii play list. At least they see if the kid borrowed Manhunt from his friends. : P But I guess both are useless in majority of the cases as you stated parents rarely read the manuals for kids toys that deeply.

ara

being the eastern philosophical ideals that nintendo trries to expose everyone too, they are a company of new ideas and even crazy ones that sometimes go too far, (waluigi, serisouly why)

this company has always sought in the ways of creating an over all gameing world.

in the end i kind of think that nintendo makes games because they love games and microsoft makes games because they love money.

Go Team Venture

PriorMarcus

otakucode

My brother bombed his report card. So he's grounded from playing the 360 on weekdays, since CoD4 led to his bombing.
We have a split family. So when he gets home from school, he goes to my father's house as opposed to my mother's where the XBox is locked up. Upon getting home, with myself and all the other adults at home, he goes downstairs to my room and plays PS3 CoD4.

I've since removed saving my password. Mostly because the little shit changed my premade classes. But this goes to show you, kids sneak. I did it. You did it. We all did it.

Setzer IIDX

Rather they are different views, Microsoft is looking to prevent children from playing too much or playing games their parents don't want them too, Nintendo is looking simply to monitor it.

I personally prefer Microsoft's method - prevention is greater than cure.

PriorMarcus

Sandbox_Emperor

If you were you would understand that sometimes you need to trust your kids but at the same time make sure the rules are enforced. You would also understand that sometimes you need some alone time, or maybe you are sick and cant watch...or cooking dinner, or they come home from school when you are at work.

Nintendo's method would let them play their hearts out and take advantage, while Microsofts would not. Children are smart, they would know damn well that you wont check everyday and they will use that to their advantage.

Im a very active parent but I dont feel the need nor do I want to watch what my child is doing every second of the day. I see parents doing that and it drives me crazy.

parad0x360

Long live MS's dictatorship approach.

Setzer IIDX

Tei

February 26...
27...
28...I think he's playing COD4. Just wait till Brawl comes out, you graphicaly amazing and online addictive bastard....

TheSonicGamer

TheHun

ceilingFANBOY

ResponsAbilities don't mean crap, apparently ):

qasimodo

Wolf_Dog

Maldron

All kidding aside, I love the idea behind the parent-child dialogue scenario, and if the kid keeps using the console to play when he shouldn't, then the parents have a more basic solution: take the console away and lock it up until the kid learns what "enough" and "responsabilities" mean.

If you just get the console to lock down after some designated time has passed, then the kid's not really learning about self-control, is he?

qasimodo

HurricaneDave

t0yrobo

qbix

Tull

gamadaya

Not that I've ever done this...

Sonic_and_Tails

FP ph15h

Nintendo grants freedom and an active part for parents to actually know what their kids are up to. Microsoft's method screams more along the liness of "don't pay attention to your kids during game time".

Shanesan

On the 360 you can set it so they cant play a certain rating, or you can limit overall play time.

As a parent I like being proactive instead of reactive. The 360's controls allow me to ensure my rules will be follows. The Wii's just set a child up for failure because we all know kids being kids they will play what they want...sometimes just to spite you.

parad0x360

NeoAkira