PlayStation Gives Parents Ratings Guidance on the Go

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ESRB ratings are familiar to all gamers and most parents, as well. However, despite high awareness and use of the ESRB ratings, it’s still critically important that we as an industry sustain our efforts to educate parents about the rating system and the tools we provide that help them manage the games their children play.

ESRB Parenta Controls Menu

To that end, SCEA is doing its part with the ESRB Video Game Ratings Guide that comes pre-loaded right on the new PSPgo device itself. I got a peek at the Guide as it was being developed and it was great to see its straight-forward and thorough overview of the ESRB rating system as well as a step-by-step walkthrough of the device’s parental control features and settings. Definitions of the ESRB age rating categories and content descriptors give parents a good understanding of how the ratings work, examples of titles that carry each of the ratings provide a useful point of reference, and the tutorial on setting up parental controls makes putting those ratings to work on the system a quick and easy process.

It’s a great tool that I highly recommend parents check out to familiarize themselves with ESRB ratings so they are well-prepared to manage the games their kids play on their new PSPgo.

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64 Comments

  • Interesting…

  • Thats kinda cool I guess.

  • Keep up the good work Ms. Vance and know that whatever crap congress wants to give ya, we Canadians support the ESRB 100%

  • PSPgo = Epic Fail
    ERSB Have no use for U I Have no kids :)

  • There was something bothering me in the body of the post… Is that REALLY how you spell “thorough.” I checked, and apparently it is. Orthographically, it seemed fine but just seeing it there, it LOOKED wrong. Ever happen to you? Like with particular fonts maybe?

    Oh, right there was a subject here, huh? XD Being one of the hardest of core gamers (Jeff can testify to this XP), I wouldn’t really have any questions about the system, and I get the feeling most people stopping by this blog wouldn’t either. That is indeed one of the big questions, isn’t it? How do you get an uninterested parent interested? How do you get them that information when they don’t have this channel of information open?

    I think the best way is to invade one of THEIR channels. >=)

    Seriously, advertise it on the Home and Gardening channel, E! and whatever channel has that stupid cooking reality-TV-show-thing. (Kitchen of Hell? Apparently one of the guys is really angry at the other guys. Shocker!)

  • This is great software for those that need it!

  • That’s not a bad idea, but I find it probably won’t really have any impact. The parents that completely ignore age ratings on video games at this point probably aren’t ever going to ever end up touching the pspgo they buy for their kid.

  • Why is ‘Go’ capitalized in the title? I thought it was the PSPgo <— lower case

  • Good feature for parents. Good job.

  • Most kids I know that have game systems the parents have no clue as to how to turn the thing on much less to read this stuff. Most kids save up their allowance or whatever and go to the store and buy it. Whenever I go to a game store like EB or walmart I see kids buying games with no parents anywhere to be seen. I have 5 little cousins and they all bought GTA without my aunts even knowing they had it or what the game was about until i said something.

  • zombie9= Epic Fail

    Since clearly he has no plans to have kids, or is not genetically fit enough, nor any friends, let alone ones that have kids, and so is ready to write off an entire toolset because it is only useful to others besides himself. He also apparently has no use for spelling and grammar.

    PSPGo= Good piece of equipment, but with an asterisk on the price-point. Definitely not an A, but not an F, either.

  • This is the worst store update evar!!!!!!!!! Oops… sorry, getting ahead of myself here.

  • Parental locks on systems and portables fail because kids are too smart and they go look up the override password. =\

    Can’t wait until we have biometrics parental controls, then they’ll have to steal my thumb or retina to play M-Rated games

  • Because this is not worth my time I’ll take this oportunity to talk about how stoked I am for uncharted 2 and lost planet 2 …….can’t wait wooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!add me if you wanna play fat princess (using mic)

  • is it an application (paid) or a free standart delivered application?

    • It\’s on the PSPgo when you get it. No charge, and if you don\’t need it, you can delete it. It\’s a surprisingly neat app for parents, though, and definitely worth a look.

  • Glad to see that Sony and ESRB are working together to make realistic goals to educating people about game ratings. If people are more aware of the guidelines, I’d hope that ESRB will not feel the need to overclassify games as mature or teen.

  • I’m glad to see this go in; as a member of the VGVN (and a constituent of Leland Yee), anything that puts the responsibility for game content where it belongs, with the parents, is A-OK with me.

  • WHERE IS MY MAG BETA TODAY IS THE 17th HEY I PAID FOR QORE can somebody tell me something ok i know im on the wrong subject sorry about that its just that i cant find info anywhere ANYBODY WANT answers like me?

  • i got the code its downloaded but i cant play it anyone else having the same problem I WANT MY MAG

  • hey i have been a xboxer for a long time, but some of my friend have a ps3, i thought i would get one, what is there online gaming like?

  • @dnirish:

    Online gaming on the PS3 is great and at least as good as the experience on the 360. And next year, MAG comes out that features 256 player battles! That is a PS3 exclusive of course.

    Buy that PS3, you won’t regret it. :)

  • i had a ps3 before but none of my friends had it, and i got rid of it. is the online gaming any good?

  • @whoelse

    that is good to know, what is mag? is it a war game?

  • Thanks for this updates for parents.

    However, I’m wondering where the other parental controls are… Things like time limits, the ability to disable parts of the console (like yes to DVDs, no to games), the ability to completely lock an account, and a more secure password.

    What about stuff like this?

  • The ESRB is the bane of 12 year olds in America. Hooray!

  • @whoelse

    thanks, but what is mag?

  • I agree with Jeigh (it seems like I do a lot, but I rarely comment).

    I am a parent, and being a parent and knowing a lot of other parents in my kids’ schools I can tell that this is not going to work. It would be a good feature if it was even noticed by parents, but most parents these days don’t care what their kids are getting into. Very ignorant.

    A little something about why it’s not going to work:

    My kids don’t understand why they can’t have cell phones or share music and movies with their friends, because everyone else is doing it. Most parents consider cell phones an obligation. But my parents didn’t have cell phones in school, and neither did I. Sharing music and movies is illegal but it is seen as a common thing to do now. Parents don’t even think about that, but when their child gets caught they are the ones responsible. Unnecessary spending and ignorance are driving this country’s economy and morality down. Parents are just buying for and allowing their kids to do anything they want these days.

    All I’m saying is that it starts and ends with parents, and while this is a good idea, most parents are not even going to know/care about it.

  • Very nice feature, but this not change the fact that PSP Go is so much expensive in use than regular PSPs. So what’s the point?

  • @18

    IF you bought Qore subscription today then you need to wait for 5 more days to get in the beta code

  • @tearsofash,
    That was hilarious. Thank you for that. :)

  • Well done. I hope I don’t run into the 14 year old squealing buffoons on Killzone 2 anymore.

    Thumbs up from me.

  • While it’s true that many parents won’t look at it, it’s a good idea to give them the chance to. The ESRB does a great job, to the point that even the FCC applauds them for it.

    To be honest, even if this app isn’t used as much as it should be, it’ll reach some. And even then, it’s good PR, not just for the PSPgo or Sony, but gaming as a whole.

  • Well done, Sony. Hopefully I won’t have to run into the squealing 14-year-old buffoons on Killzone 2 anymore.

    Hats off.

  • @4
    What a clown!
    I think this is great, they should bring something like that to the PS3..anyone who’s got a teen ranting and complaining while playing online will agree with me.

    They need to get tougher with the age limit deal…

    Just an example, they said the MAG beta was gonna be ONLY for ppl over 18..yet playing this morning a 12 YR OLD was in there…how come?

  • @27 I echo your comments. As a lifelong gamer and parent, it really is the parent’s responsibility to… PARENT their kids!

    The ratings are helpful but you really need to look at the content on a case by case basis..

    My son is 6 and is getting into games. He loves to play me 1 on 1 at Warhawk, which is a Teen rated title. Yes there is war violence but it’s not terribly realistic and we’ve had discussions that real weapons are war are serious things.

    I won’t let him play Batman because I feel that it has a lot of disturbing imagery.

    I also refuse to let him watch rated R movies and some PG13 movies.

    Although I was watching rated R movies when I was 6, and played Mortal Kombat when I was 10 and I turned out ok. It all came down to my parents being parents and teaching me the difference between what is real and what is not.

    P.S. No Cell phone for my kid until High School.. if then even!

  • MAG stands for Massive Action Game and it is a first person shooter but on a large scale.

    More information available with a quick internet search.

  • Why is this Console being turned into a little kids toy? I bought the PS3 because it was out of price range of most kids and as I see it alot of kids still don’t have the ps3 at least the game I play. Why are you guys turning it into a xbox? I enjoy playing with the very few kids that we have I enjoy playing with my age group.

  • @29 i got my MAG BETA CODE ON THE 14th an downloaded mag to my xmb last night an today i got to click on mag an it says an error has occurred doing the start operation an it gives me some number at the bottom i just got off the phone with sony twice they cant help me IM PISSED all they say is try waiting for the 5pm-8pm pacific time zone im in NC so yall know

  • anybody else having this problem? sony thinks MAG is having some kind of server problem but i see 3 of my friends playing mag right now this is not fare to me i been waiting since 3 weeks ago

  • Yeah, I’m also having trouble with MAG. But I’ve also been having internet problems recently (v3.0?). First thing that happened was it said it couldn’t connect to server. Then after restart, started receiving update info or whatever (2660+mb file). Only got halfway through before connection error. Now I get an insufficient disk space error because apparently half the file I’ve downloaded may be on my system, but I can’t find it.

    I’ll keep trying til first window closes I guess, then keep trying some more if need be.

  • Whats the point of putting it on there if the kid can delete the app?

  • Whats the point of this app if you can just delete it?

  • @40 well i dont think im having the same problem as you but im having a problem none the less what do we do? i got my mag beta code on the 14th i download it last night ok i try an click on mag an the game wont start i deleted the beta from my XMB like 3 times re-downloaded it an it still wont work

  • For everyone that is having trouble with logging into MAG, make sure you note what time you are trying to log in.

    If you look at your voucher email it gives you certain hours of the day that you can play it.

    Monday through Friday 10:00am to 1:00pm PDT and 5:00pm through 8:00pm PDT.

    You will not be able to play if you are not in those time frames.

  • great application for parents

  • @37 This is for the PSP. And if they put this on the PS3 how would that be a bad thing? I think more parents do need more education on game ratings and I’m sure alot of parents are happy to have this tool at their fingerprints.

  • psp go looks really uncomfortable. Rather get the assasins creed psp 3000 bundle, even though i know sony will screw me in 6 months with the release of 4000.

  • next PSPgo app: let us raise your children. you’re doing a horrible job anyway.

  • The concept is good-willed but I see this being largely unused by anyone. Ah well, it covers their asses for any lawsuits – they can just point to this and say they gave the tools for parents to make it ‘safe’ for their kids so all is well in legal terms.

  • great idea posting this up for everyone who owns a psp go! to see, you really should do the same with the ps3, make it an easy to find tab or something

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