PS3 joins the parental control party
There have been mutterings regarding this topic before, but the Entertainment Software Association has recently confirmed that Sony's next-gen console will feature controls to allow parents to restrict access to both movies and games based on their respective ratings (as opposed to the PlayStation 2, which only allows parents to restrict access to movies). Following similar announcements from both Microsoft and Nintendo, this means that all three next-gen consoles will give parents more capacity than ever to keep tabs on their child's gaming habit. Here at Joystiq, we're all about greater parental supervision, especially when that means keeping your twelve-year old Halo fanboy out of our comment threads (we don't mind the twelve year-old Tetris fanboys so much). However, parental controls can work only as well as the parents who use them, and are no replacement for active parental supervision. While politicians can't say we didn't try, how many parents will bother to take advantage of these increased checks in favor of continued apathy towards what their child is playing? And with fewer and fewer ways to blame the games industry itself, will this be the generation that people finally come to the realization that parents are ultimately responsible for the upbringing of their children?
