Sony Shuts PSN Down Overnights for Underage Korean Gamers

79w ago - Today Sony Computer Entertainment of Korea (SCEK) has announced that PSN will be shutdown overnights for underage Korean gamers in an effort to comply South Korea's Shutdown Law and prevent players under sixteen from gaming during the six hour block.

To quote from Kotaku (linked above): "The law is designed to limit Korean youth's late night gaming as well as online game addiction. It also aims to ensure Korean youth get six hours of sleep each night, with online gaming banned between midnight and 6am.

Starting Nov. 18, Sony will not allow players under the age of sixteen to make new PSN accounts in South Korea as well as prevent them from logging onto the PSN.

Both Sony and Microsoft are saying it is difficult to develop and implement shutdown systems for under-sixteen players in such a short window of time. Sony cannot say when it will have a system up and running, and it will announce how it will handle the PS Vita at a later date.

The Sony shutdown system would allow under 16-year-old players to log in during the day, but prevent them from playing between midnight and 6am. It would also prevent them from making new accounts, meaning that Sony of Korea would probably be monitoring the accounts by IP addresses.

While PSN users must enter their age and birthday when making an account, Microsoft of Korea apparently doesn't collect age data for all players, complicating enforcement. Thus, Microsoft is actually considering shutting down Xbox Live for all players, regardless of age, during the designated shutdown block.

Nintendo of Korea has yet to reveal how it will deal with enforcing the Shutdown Law."