Microsoft has announced today that the Xbox One’s family settings are live. The special \tools have been introduced to give parents the ability to control how their children interact with players inside and outside Xbox Live.
The tools include screen-time management, purchase limits, content filters, privacy and more.
Taking advantage of these tools is as simple as creating a child account and linking it to their main Xbox Live account. Afterwards, parents will have more than a dozen tools at their disposal.
Xbox One Cross Play Family Settings
With 15 tools available to parents, Microsoft has detailed a few of the main ones. These are;
- Screen time management: Parents can set time limits and view activity reports to keep on top of their children’s activity. Limits can be set for each day of the week, meaning parents can restrict gaming on school nights or allow more time over the weekend.
- Purchase limits: Parents can choose to approve children’s purchases before they are made, to receive alerts after each purchase, or to set up an allowance to limit purchases children can make on their own.
- Content filters: Parents can filter or allow games, apps and websites based on the age of their children to ensure they are interacting with age-appropriate content. Children can also request access to content which parents can then approve or decline.
- Privacy: Parents can set what people see about their child’s online profile, status and gaming history and who they can communicate with online. This is especially valuable with the increasing popularity of multiplayer games where users can interact with other players around the world. These settings can be managed via the parent’s Microsoft account at xbox.com/Settings.
Additionally, Microsoft has responded to specific concerns about those children who play with others on PS4 and/or Switch. Fortnite is the first game to take advantage of the Xbox One Cross Play settings and gives parents control over cross play communication.
The Xbox One cross play settings allow parents to turn on or off cross play and cross play communication. Microsoft expects additional games to take advantage of the settings as more games take advantage of cross play.
The new Xbox One family settings aren’t just to control how children play but to educate both parties. An activity report will be available through the family settings which provides feedback on play habits and screen time.
Children will be able to request additional screentime, use the Ask a Parent feature for making purchases and request access to websites, apps or games.
For more information, parents can head to the Xbox Family site.
