A new PlayStation app was just released on the Google Play Store on Android and the App Store on iOS. It’s not a replacement for the current PlayStation app or related to one of their major franchises, though.
Called PlayStation Family, it’s primarily focused on giving people easy access to parental control features without needing to use the console. It’s certainly helpful for those who want to monitor or control their kids’ console gaming, although it’s not something that I have much use for.
What is the PlayStation Family App?
A new way to modify the PlayStation consoles’ parental controls
The PlayStation Family app is out now, and should work on your phone as long as it’s a device that supports the Android 8.0 OS or higher. A PlayStation Blog post released alongside the app’s launch highlights everything it can do.
From the PlayStation Family app, it’s possible to set up a child account for the PlayStation Network. If your kid already has one, there are several features that can let a parent know what their kids are playing, when they start a game, and how long they play. It works with both the PS4 and PS5.
You can see detailed data on an account’s daily playtime and activity, set playtime limits, institute PlayStation Wallet funds and spending limits, and establish content filters from the app.
It also has notification support, so the app user can see when their child boots up a game and respond to requests for them to have extra playtime or access to a restricted game. Although much of this data and many of these features were already available on PlayStation’s consoles, the app brings all of it together in a single place.
After going through the PlayStation Family app, I see that it has pretty much everything someone would want out of a parental control app for a gaming console. That’s good, but it obviously has a very specific use case. As I don’t have kids or the need to restrict or closely monitor my PlayStation console playtime or spending, I don’t really have a use for PlayStation Family.
That said, the app is not really built for PlayStation users like me, so that’s not a bad thing. But if you have a child who’s playing Fortnite or Roblox on their PS5 a little too much, though, you should definitely consider downloading this app and properly setting up parental controls on their account.
