Microsoft Plans Game Ratings Blocker for Next Windows
Microsoft will build a game ratings blocker into next year's Windows, checking rating data embedded directly in the games themselves.
The next version of Windows, due out next year, will let parents lock games out of the family PC based on their content ratings. According to an Associated Press report, the feature will block games rated for excessive violence, sexual content, or foul language, and it works along the same lines as the site-blocking filter already built into Internet Explorer.
Kevin Bachus, a product manager in Microsoft’s multimedia group, says parents will also be able to approve specific unrated programs by hand, so the word processor still runs even though nobody rated it. The real shift is under the hood: Microsoft is working with game makers to bake rating data into new releases for the Windows Game Manager to read. A ratings database is planned too, downloadable or searchable on the Internet.
Right now a rating is ink on the box and nothing more. Putting it in the code, where the operating system can actually read it, is a real change. Whether it slows down the kids who set up the family PC in the first place is another question.