Console makers Nintendo and Sony will have tools, in compliance with the China minor ban announced last week in order to curb gaming addiction among minors.
Last week, Sony announced that they would be limiting playtime on accounts for those under 18, following the minor ban. Additionaly, you wouldn’t be able to play games from 10pm to 8am either, to better curb all-nighters.
Most recently, however, industry analyst Danial Ahmad reported that Tencent, would include more compliant parental controls with its WeChat Mini app, allowing the Switch Parental Controls to better comply with the ban, which sees minors only being allowed an hour of gaming a day on weekends.
Tencent, which distributes the Nintendo Switch in China, also clarified that its WeChat mini program for Switch parental controls will be updated to comply with restrictions imposed on the amount of time that minors can play games each week. https://t.co/1s1d2CBHR1 pic.twitter.com/SsIvbVq73q
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) September 3, 2021
This gives us a more clear idea of how the China is planning to apply the minor ban, which has been something of a mystery since the new measures were announced last week.
By having the controls be set by the platform holders instead of the parents, it seems that big companies like Sony and Nintendo are the ones being held responsible for keeping minors off their platform.
That being said, it’s still not known just how exactly the rest of this measure will be implemented. After all, they could very well still be punishments for parents caught letting their children use workarounds to get pass the minor ban (e.g just faking your age).