Recently there was some hubbaloo that came out of Missouri about gaming systems being the new portal for predators to gain access to our children. The original report was laden with misinformation but it does draw attention to an important discussion. Did you know your kids games have wifi? Whta games do and what games don’t? The gaming industry is working with groups like Wired Safety to make their games safer for kids. At the same time kids want to be able to play with their friends – whether it is local multi-player or online with other gamers around the world.
Parents just need to know what their game system can do and develop a strategy with their kids that not only puts into consideration contact by other gamers but also hours played in a week and living a balanced life. That being said, here is our review of the big 3.
NINTENDO:
Systems:
- ( Old school Nintendo 64 ) Game cubeOnline capability: No
Parental controls: games are ESRB rated and basically 90% designed for kids - DSWireless capability: YES – sort of ( did you know that? )Most parents I talk to did not realize that kids could talk to other kids through their DS. That means strangers can talk to them too. The DS does have a cool feature where other players with a DS controller can all play together ( local multi player ) at the same time and they can exchange chat messages too ( Pictochat ) as long as they are in a relatively close proximity. But somehow even though we can’t get cell phone reception in the basement of a cinder block building the DS can pick up a signal from another DS system as long as it is in the 100 feet circumference ( or about that ). This is important to know because there is really no way to turn this feature off. According to the message boards there are only two things a parent can do about this. 1. Set up their kids DS to auto mode ( in the menu ) and this way when the kids load a new game it will go automatically to the game and bypass the menu ( giving them the choice to pictochat ). It doesn’t close down pictochat but it makes it more challenging for the kids to get to. 2. Talk to their kids about pictochat and what to do if they see something on their DS that they don’t know where it came from.Parental controls: YES – fairly easy to follow – found at nintendo.com
- WiiOnline capability: YES – and getting cooler all the time. But still difficult to set up and have address book requirements for messaging.Parental controls: YES – very easy to follow – found at nintendo.com
Xbox:
- Online capability: YES – and getting better all the time.Parental controls: YES – support for parents is awesome.Xbox has evolved for the grown-up gamer and has its own set of challenges. We were a little slower to get into Xbox because at the time Nintendo had the games for kids and Xbox was designing games for teens and adults. We got on board when Xbox went online in 2002 with Xbox live. This required a starter kit and a subscription. My kids played in the family room and they followed basic Internet guidelines of never using their real names or identifying characteristics. It was pretty fun.
Xbox has now evolved into Xbox 360 and has really kept pace with the online multi player gamers wishes. There are definitely ( Most Definitely ) things that parents should be alerted to – many of these games are quite mature. The great thing about Xbox is that they have not only kept up with gamers concerns but they have also kept up with parents concerns and have developed a site for Families to make sure that their kids stay safe while gaming.GET GAME SMART ( http://www.getgamesmart.com/ ) while this site is designed from the Xbox perspective it is still a great site to visit and work through with your kids no matter what system you have.
PlayStation:
- Online capability: YESParental Controls: YESPlaystation, PS2, PS3 and the Playstation Portable – PSP The Playstation systems have really evolved from their US release in 1995. They stayed competitive by creating games with spectacular 3D features and a system that had as much power as a regular computer. Playstation3 ( PS3) and the Portable Playstation (PSP) both have online and Wifi capabilities. I don’t own a PSP but have heard that it has a great screen and that it can even go online ( not just for gaming ). It can have a camera feature and online radio. So it can be very cool. From the forum sites the parental controls for the PS3 are fairly easy to set. The only thing is that Playstation has its own rating system based on a 1 to 11 scale. According to the forum a 5 is relatively close to a T rating but you should gage these ratings for yourself before counting on the numbers to help you out too much. As a parent though there is some concern with the PSP network because when I went to the Family Features of the website the page said “Help and support documents not found”. It can be a very cool very powerful game system but it must be treated the same as allowing your kid on an unfiltered Internet browser. You are the parental control.
For more information check out Wired Safety and follow us on Twitter at WiredMoms