Parental controls strengthened in PlayStation system software 5.50, entering beta today

The team at PlayStation is constantly futzing around with the system software, making improvements to the interface and adding new features. If, like me, you are a parent with teenage children that can’t be separated from their PlayStations by anything short of surgery or house fires, you will take particular interest in System Software v5.50, which is releasing into beta today.

Parents will be able to leverage new “Play Time Management” tools, which will allow them to manage the number of hours their kids can play PlayStation. Parents will also be able to set particular times of day during which the system is available for use. If your kid is getting close to bumping up against their time limit, they will receive a notification warning them to save and quit. Whether or not they get automatically logged out when they go over the line is configurable as well. If you kid starts screaming for “five more minutes”, you will be able to add extra game time via the PlayStation App on your phone, which kind of makes you a god.

In addition, there are all sorts of little quality of life changes. A couple of new tabs in the Library will allow you to separate out your free PS Plus games from your cash-purchased games, and separate out games that you specifically have purchased from other games that may be lurking on your hard drive. Players will also be able to hide purchased apps from their Library to help clean up the interface (i.e. bury all of those demos you are never gonna touch again).

The other biggie that stuck out to me was the ability to delete old notifications. Those things pile up endlessly. 

For a full rundown on the upcoming improvements, check out the post on the PlayStation Blog.