Post by Ethan Hawkeye on Nov 27, 2004 23:19:42 GMT -5
Ninten.com reported this article recently discussing how safe the children of today are with ne wonline systems for consoles being introduced and taking up their real world to their virtual one...
As console gaming moves forward to online gaming....how safe will your children be?
gamestar.ninten.com/f/article.php?a=2
Written by Mike
"Recent reports say that Shigeru Miyamoto has announced that online gaming is becoming more popular than he believed and that Nintendo will make decisions within the next 3-4 years to bring online gaming to their consoles. Nintendo being the last company in the console wars to enter into the online gaming phenomenon will be the one to bring the most underage gamers into this new way of playing games. This is where the question arises, how safe will our children be interacting with others in a virtual world that mimics the same enviroments of the internet?
XBox Live, from Microsoft is the most successful of the online gaming services for this generation of consoles. While offering the benefits of playing others all over the world without leaving your house, you can also use voice chat and recently MSN Messenger to keep in contact with buddies and new ones you meet over the service. While this seems like a good idea, most parents are concerned that this could lead to children being vulnerable to predators on the service.
Connecting to XBox Live is easy and there is no personal information available to anyone who uses it. You can't find a group of 11 year olds playing Halo specifically but if you search through each gaming room you will come across them eventually. Even then they are masked behind a user name that could consist of an alias containing numbers or a nickname they are called in school. This name can be added to a buddy list to track when a user is on, even if you don't know where they are on the service, your buddy list will tell you. This is where the scare factor comes in. A potential predator could add any user to their buddy list and follow them into any game they are playing (if they own the same game) and be able to chat with them.
XBox Live comes with a headset so you can communicate with others while in gameplay. It also works in the waiting rooms for games and outside of games. There is no filter on words and anything that is spoken over the voice chat feature can be heard by anyone who is listening and not be edited for content. With millions of users subscribed to the service, to have a group of people to monitor every room would be impossible.
Microsoft has come up with ways to play and not utuilize the chat features. You can turn off microphones and not hear what other users have to say, and also you can play without your headset so you don't need to talk to anyone. The question is, how many parents actually make an attempt to prevent their children from using those features?
A child wants a new system, to make them happy the parent buys it. They want a new game, the parent buys it. The child uses the excuse to play his friend Billy who lives 20 miles down the road, and to prevent having to drive him there everyday so they can play you purchase an online service for them. But Billy isn't the only one playing with your child.
Nintendo has the most gamers and targeted demographic of children than any other company. With them entering the online gaming competition, is it possible that children may be exposed to potential threats from users who prefer to play with children than actual games? The answer lies in the parents lap to take precautionary measures to prevent interaction with users if possible and monitor their child's gaming activities. Most parents won't even let their children on their home PC for this reason. Why let the same happen on their console?"
*From"http://gamestar.ninten.com/f/article.php?a=2"*
~As console gaming moves forward to online gaming....how safe will your children be?
Written by Mike ~
As console gaming moves forward to online gaming....how safe will your children be?
gamestar.ninten.com/f/article.php?a=2
Written by Mike
"Recent reports say that Shigeru Miyamoto has announced that online gaming is becoming more popular than he believed and that Nintendo will make decisions within the next 3-4 years to bring online gaming to their consoles. Nintendo being the last company in the console wars to enter into the online gaming phenomenon will be the one to bring the most underage gamers into this new way of playing games. This is where the question arises, how safe will our children be interacting with others in a virtual world that mimics the same enviroments of the internet?
XBox Live, from Microsoft is the most successful of the online gaming services for this generation of consoles. While offering the benefits of playing others all over the world without leaving your house, you can also use voice chat and recently MSN Messenger to keep in contact with buddies and new ones you meet over the service. While this seems like a good idea, most parents are concerned that this could lead to children being vulnerable to predators on the service.
Connecting to XBox Live is easy and there is no personal information available to anyone who uses it. You can't find a group of 11 year olds playing Halo specifically but if you search through each gaming room you will come across them eventually. Even then they are masked behind a user name that could consist of an alias containing numbers or a nickname they are called in school. This name can be added to a buddy list to track when a user is on, even if you don't know where they are on the service, your buddy list will tell you. This is where the scare factor comes in. A potential predator could add any user to their buddy list and follow them into any game they are playing (if they own the same game) and be able to chat with them.
XBox Live comes with a headset so you can communicate with others while in gameplay. It also works in the waiting rooms for games and outside of games. There is no filter on words and anything that is spoken over the voice chat feature can be heard by anyone who is listening and not be edited for content. With millions of users subscribed to the service, to have a group of people to monitor every room would be impossible.
Microsoft has come up with ways to play and not utuilize the chat features. You can turn off microphones and not hear what other users have to say, and also you can play without your headset so you don't need to talk to anyone. The question is, how many parents actually make an attempt to prevent their children from using those features?
A child wants a new system, to make them happy the parent buys it. They want a new game, the parent buys it. The child uses the excuse to play his friend Billy who lives 20 miles down the road, and to prevent having to drive him there everyday so they can play you purchase an online service for them. But Billy isn't the only one playing with your child.
Nintendo has the most gamers and targeted demographic of children than any other company. With them entering the online gaming competition, is it possible that children may be exposed to potential threats from users who prefer to play with children than actual games? The answer lies in the parents lap to take precautionary measures to prevent interaction with users if possible and monitor their child's gaming activities. Most parents won't even let their children on their home PC for this reason. Why let the same happen on their console?"
*From"http://gamestar.ninten.com/f/article.php?a=2"*
~As console gaming moves forward to online gaming....how safe will your children be?
Written by Mike ~
