Wii Rally

This week Wii Parental Controls

Well everyone the first work week of 2007 has come to a close. This weekend is a good one to catch up on those little tasks that may have slipped your mind during the holiday chaos. One such thing that may have slipped your mind is to set the “Parental Controls” on your brand new Nintendo Wii. Well that’s why we have “Feature Friday” every Friday I’m going to try and go in-depth with one of the features of the Wii. Due to recent developments with the Wii Opera Browser I thought that parental controls would be an excellent place to start.

Now most parents don’t know this but for the last two console generations home consoles have come with a parental lock. Similar to those found on DVD players the Wii’s parental controls are no different from those that have come before it. The Wii’s parental controls work with the ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings Board) ratings that appear on all games so that you can restrict what game titles are played on your Wii console. To do this, simply follow the steps found after the jump

Step 1: Start up your Wii.
*NOTE* If you apply parental controls to your Wii you will be required to input a four digit code (Keep this secret from those younger gamer in the house)

Step 2: Access the Wii “System Settings”

Step 3: Use your WiiMote to access the “System settings 2″ menu.

Step 4: Select “Parental Controls”

Step 5: Set the highest game rating that can be played on that Wii console. E for everyone, E10+, T for Teen, M for Mature or AO for Adults only (Not many games have this ratings so your best bet is M for mature if you have young ones in the house)
*NOTE* These controls will not effect GameCube games played on the Wii

Step 6: Confirm your selection and you are ready to go, or you can proceed to the other parental control options.

*NOTE* The following steps may only be available if your Wii is connected to the Internet

Step 7: Change the other options like the ability to use the Wii Opera Browser, The News Channel, Wii message system; you can even set the number of Wii points (Nintendo’s online currency) that may be spent by users.

Step 8: Confirm everything and you’re all set

Now once you have set the Parental Controls if a Wii user tries to access or download content that exceeds the maximum ESRB rating you have set then the user will be prompted for the four digit access code. No code no play!

A couple things to watch out for.

With the Wii parental controls you can set whether users can access the Opera browser or not. You can not restrict what can be accessed on the web with the browser so be sure to monitor what your kids are doing just like you do when they surf the net on your home computer. It has recently come to light that some “Adult” websites can be accessed with the Wii Opera browser, all the more reason to monitor your child’s web surfing.

I hope you have enjoyed the very first Wii Rally Feature Friday: Parental Controls if you have any feedback or questions please drop a comment or send me an email I love hearing from readers. If you would like more information on the ESA or ESRB then please visit ESRB.org or the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) I am also every familiar with the ESRB ratings systems so feel free to ask me anything regarding what you have just read.