LiveArea:Parental Controls
In the Parental Controls application (NPXS10094), parents or guardians can manage the duration their child can play and the features their child can use.
It is a scale to rate the content for the different users based in user profile settings and international rating systems as: PEGI, ESRB, CERO, etc...
Age rating is not a guide to gaming difficulty.
Setting your passcode
If you forget your passcode, you must restore your system or edit /CONFIG/SECURITY/PARENTAL/passcode in registry.
Items that you can restrict
Features
You can allow or disallow starting of Browser and PS Store.
You can also allow or disallow the use of location data, and you can block the display of objectionable websites.
Games
You can restrict/lock the use of games and videos that have parental controls (the PARAM.SFO file delineate the PARENTAL LEVEL of the content). In addition to [Off] (not restricted), your system can be set to one of eleven levels. The lower (or higher?) the number, the tighter the restriction.
~ Parental Control Level | ~ child's age | Content description | ||||
11 | 18+ | Sony does not allow for publishing of Adult Only games on its platform. (strong sexual content, gore, violence, human trafficking, providing/soliciting prostitution, ...) | ||||
10 | 18+ | Sony does not allow for publishing of Adult Only games on its platform. (strong sexual content, gore, violence, human trafficking, providing/soliciting prostitution ...) | ||||
9 | 18 | May contain prolonged scenes of intense violence towards defenseless people, sexual content or nudity, robbery, kidnapping, self-inflicted injury or suicide and profanity. | ||||
8 | 17 | Contains some Mature material. May contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language. | ||||
7 | 16 | May contain explicit or realistic-looking violence, strong language, sexual references or content, gambling, or encouragement of drug use. | ||||
7 | 15 | May contain moderate sexual content, more violence, and infrequent use of strong profanity, nudity of upper female body, nudity of the back of the body, or distant image of full nudity, processed image of nudity or slight sexual suggestion through picture, text, image or audio. | ||||
6 | 14 | |||||
5 | 13 | May contain mild sexual content in an appropriate context for Teens; violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, profanity, minimal blood, alcohol, tobacco, simulated gambling and/or infrequent use of strong language. | ||||
5 | 12 | May contain violence in either a fantasy context or a sporting action, coarse language, mild sexual references or innuendo, or gambling. Love Affair: The Game design procures users to have virtual romantic relationship or virtual marriage. | ||||
4 | 11 | |||||
4 | 10 | Can contain a larger amount of violence, mild language, crude humor, or suggestive content. For Everyone above 10-year-olds. | ||||
3 | 9 | |||||
3 | 8 | |||||
3 | 7 | May contain mild or unrealistic violence (e.g. violence in a cartoon context), or elements that can be frightening to younger children. | ||||
3 | 6 | Suitable for Everyone; may contain minimal cartoon, fantasy or mild violence and/or infrequent use of mild language. Virtual board games /educational and entertainment games using virtual currencies and the results of the game have a direct impact on the increase or decrease in the amount of Game currencies. | ||||
2 | 5 | |||||
2 | 4 | |||||
2 | 3 | May contain mild violence in an appropriate context for Early Childhood, but neither bad language nor frightening content is allowed. | ||||
1 | 2 | NA | NA | |||
1 | 1 | NA | NA | For all ages, educational resource. |
Fun Fact
- CERO: One month after the initial release of Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland, shipments of it were halted due to it having been mis-rated.
It was re-released a few days later with a B rating from CERO (instead of A).
(Atelier Meruru Plus: the Apprentice of Arland on Vita is rated as B for CERO, T for ESRB, 12 for PEGI and 12+ for Taiwan Game Software Rating Regulations.)
- ESRB: Vita Game About Giving Girls Orgasms Accidentally Rated for Everyone: Gal*Gun: Double Peace has been mistakenly marked with the rating E instead of M
Many video games have certain elements removed or edited due to regional rating standards.
Play duration
You can restrict the duration that your child plays per day. With this restriction, when the daily play duration that you set is exceeded, the system cannot be used.
It is possible to bypass this restriction by resetting the clock- hold START + SELECT + PS + POWER
until the system powers itself off. once you turn it back on you will be prompted to set the time again and the playtime timer will be reset.