Wii almost came with auto-shut down timer

[Joshawott 7]

Nintendo's Takashi Aoyama divulged some interesting information concerning Wii in it's developing stages: the system almost came with a parental timer that shut the console down after a predetermined period of time to regulate a child's gameplay.

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Aoyama said that Nintendo president Satoru Iwata did not want Wii "to be seen as an enemy in the household", and suggested the implementation of a parental control timer to control how long someone plays, much like Microsoft's Xbox 360.

The development team debated on a form of parental control system for "several weeks" before coming up with a much better solution: recording play history on the Wii Message Board.

"Instead of instituting some play limit...this allowed parents to monitor and discuss how much their children were playing...this is why you can't erase the play history on the console," Aoyama said.

Source: [url="http://www.kotaku.com.au/games/2008/02/nintendo_almost_used_microsoftstyle_parental_controls-2.html"]Kotaku[/url]

[Sentri 1]

dodged a bullet there

[Cindy 1]

Woah...

I never know that

I guess it was the best that it was not put in, but there is a un-erasable history.........

So, that works too...

[Vadarth X 0]

I prefer the un-erasable history to the play timer limit thing.

[Gingerlink 2]

I think this feature has now been added to the xbox 360, but I think one problem is most parents wouldn't know about this, so all in all, it doesn't normally work out as intended...

[Ryu 7]

if it had one i wouldn't have a wii XD

When i got My wii i would play TP for 8 hours straight, untill i beat it of course.


Then i dropped my total play time to about 3 hours, then 2, and now i rarely play it, i check my messages EVERYDAY.

I'm to caught up in my DS and Pokemon XD

[lord jabu jabu 0]

[quote name='Soi Karuna' post='125070' date='Feb 29 2008, 01:10 AM']dodged a bullet there[/quote]
your right!

[eyeoftruth 2]

[quote name='Gingerlink' post='125154' date='Feb 29 2008, 11:00 PM']I think this feature has now been added to the xbox 360, but I think one problem is most parents wouldn't know about this, so all in all, it doesn't normally work out as intended...[/quote]

You're right. But they could read the manual and find out some stuff about the wii, if they bothered. So at least they have the option.

[Adr990 2]

? go update that... (well it need to but...)

[Crowned Twili Princess 0]

Usually when I get a new video game, I'll play it 2- 3 hours straight
I notice that when I check the messages on my Wii, to see how long I've played, it always coms up between 1 1/2-2 1/2 hours. After two hours, I start to get tired and have to stop soon.

[Nathan 0]

I think it's a love/hate thing - some would really like that feature, others... not so much.