Wait wait wait. The Nintendo Switch has multiple users, but its parental control features are console-wide?? This seems actually unusable for a shared household. Am I missing something??
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@cassidy Nintendo switch has unfortunately always been quite unfriendly towards multi-user households. Their default model has seemed to be device per person, and so lots of things that don't fit that are half baked, or less.
@aeischeid right but they didn't do the iPad thing and force it to be single-user. So it feels like they understand the value of a shared console, but then just never actually followed through.
@cassidy the Nintendo Switch has never been a good sharing console. It’s always been designed more like a GameBoy/DS than a GameCube/Wii in that they expect you to buy one for everyone. It’s one of the biggest flaws in the switch series of consoles imo.
@micahilbery it's weird to me that they explicitly have multiple accounts at all, then! I would think the two would go hand in hand. Like Apple forces single user mode on iPads and so then device-wide parental controls would be fine, but the Switch HAS multiple accounts!! It seems so strange to me, especially when I’m used to the PS5 which just does it the… obvious way, I guess.
@cassidy yeah, I haven’t thought much about it because Nintendo has been notoriously bad with non-game software. Especially with anything that needs to touch the internet or another device.
@cassidy If you're asking if one kid (user) can have 1 set of restrictions or age limits & another kid can have a different set, the answer is no. Because if the goal is to stop the 8 yo from playing GTA then they can't just start the game as their sibling to bypass it.
Unless we start getting into passwords on user accounts & stopping the kids from sharing them.
I'm not sure how else it could work. I have 3 kids & the controls have mostly just been used to block the few M rated games we have.
@syntaxseed the PS5 has multiple accounts and per-account parental controls. Yes, you need a PIN for it to be effective, which seems… fine? My six year old can remember an 8-digit school password, they can remember a 4–6 digit PIN for video games.
@cassidy Yeah that would be good too. I just can't imagine siblings not telling each other their pins. 😆
@cassidy yeah it’s dumb