New PS4 Update Alllows Parents To Control Kid's Play Time

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rgMekanic

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Update 5.50 Beta is out today for the PS4, and brings with a new feature called "Play Time Management." Building on the "Family Managers" controls introduced in 5.00, the new update allows Family Managers to set limits on when and for how long each individual child can play for. Control can be done from the console, or from a web browser to adjust settings, and check your child's playtime each day.

Cool addition that I'm sure a lot of parents will appreciate. Parent's used to be a lot more hands on, I remember they used to just walk up and turn off the console, then take the controllers if that didn't get the message across. Kids today will never know the pain of not having saves or checkpoints.

Notifications will be sent to children during gameplay so that they know when they should save and quit. The family managers/guardians can also set the PS4 to log out once the playtime session is over, and increase or decrease game time on the go, via the web portal.
 
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This wasn't a feature before? I have been using this for the Xbox 360 and the Xbox One for my nephews to manage their online stuff for years. I know Nintendo refuses to add this as they don't want to interrupt a person's gaming experience, but thought that both Sony and Microsoft had the feature.
 
Kind of makes me think of the signs I see where the parents say "To get today's wifi password... do the laundry, make your bed, take out the trash"
 
"Yeah, but DAD, this week they're having Teacher Conferences on Thursday & Friday. Can't you fix that"???
 
My dad hid our intellivision way up on top of the 6 foot entertainment center when I was 5. I stacked up 2 large audio speakers trying to reach it and fell smashing my arm/face on the cement floor. For fear that I was going to kill myself trying to locate it my parents worked out a fair schedule with me for when I was allowed to play games so that we didn't have a fatality.
 
In the 4th grade when I got detention for not doing my homework, and guess what I really didn't do it much then either and the teacher kept me until like 4:30pm... needless to say there was a shitstorm on all fronts after that the school for not contacting my parents and making them freak out a tad, the teacher for actually keeping a 4th grader that late after school, and of course me as well which my mom at the time simply took the power supply from my Commodore 64 and hid it somewhere, meaning no computer.
 
I need to give my wife that code LOL. I got lost in a game last night and stayed up until 2 am. Whoops.
 
Still can't automatically backup saves to a USB stick? Ugh, F off Sony. But I guess it's cool they spent a bunch of time allowing us to change the background of a screen we are never on.
 
so this is all web based. No master reset button to disable the time limit ?
 
Kdawg said:
so this is all web based. No master reset button to disable the time limit ?
Click to expand...

Not unless the kid knows the password to get into the parental controls. What good would it be if resetting power to the console erased the limit? I think this is a good idea to help, especially when the parents are out and a babysitter is in, you can control that kind of thing remotely or knowing it will work while you are away.

While playing NES my dad used to try to "turn it off", luckily my dad has always been incompetent with technology so we would just turn off the TV, not the console. I would press the "start" button to pause, and act like he did the job of getting me to stop laying (after hours). I would wait until he went to go lay back down in bed or go back out to the garage or whatever and then just turn the TV back on lol.
 
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