Parental controls need an overhaul for Xbox One, Microsoft official says

Xbox designers are still trying to determine how they will implement parental controls on the upcoming Xbox One.

The new system will need to be less confusing than the Xbox 360's system for monitoring and restricting a child's access to content, corporate vice president of interactive entertainment business Ben Kilgore told Polygon.

"How do we simplify it a bit," he said. "We have a lot of power that's hard for a lot of people to understand. Part of the goal is how do we simplify it and hit on the few things that are really what parents are looking for to keep them in charge. That part of the plan is still evolving, so I don't have any specific details."

The Xbox 360 allows parents to set up limitations on the sort of content, including movies and video games, their children can play. It can also limit who a child can communicate with using Live and what sorts of purchases are allowed on the system.

While the console includes a family timer, the timer system is not as robust as the one used on Microsoft's Windows operating system. On Windows, a parent can specifically when a child can and can't play by creating specific schedules for each day. On the Xbox 360 you can only set a time limit for per a day or week, but no cut off times. Windows also closely monitors and logs a child's computer use more closely than the Xbox 360.

Kilgore said one of the team's "aspirational goals" is to develop a simplified family setting system that would work across all of Microsoft's platforms,

"One of our goals, over time, our aspirational goal is, ‘How do we make sure all Microsoft products share the same family settings?'," he said. "So you know that, once you've configured it that you don't want your son to watch R-rated movies, it doesn't matter if he's on a Windows slate, Windows phone or the TV. His account just knows those things. So those are, like, we're trying to drive a really unified story across all of our products. "