3DS May have Parent Lock

It was posted earlier this week (and back at E3) that Nintendo is warning gamers that the 3D effect on the Nintendo 3DS can harm some people's eyes if used to frequently. This warning is especially strong towards young children, age 6 or younger. Their reasons are that young kids are still in development and the 3D effect could damage their eyes if used too much. Nintendo is heavily recommending frequent breaks for regular gamers as well. Of course, warnings like this are nothing new at all, Nintendo and other such companies have been putting out warnings like this for years now. Mostly due to seizures, such as the mandatory warning screen that pops up every time you power you DS up. They always recommend you take frequent breaks when gaming for long periods. In general, these warnings are set in place to avoid lawsuits from gamers and/or parents who don't read the rules properly and don't understand the "risks".

Though this may seem as if Nintendo is simply taking precaution and warning people to prevent any sort of lawsuit, the possibility of damaging small children's eyes is apparently considered enough of a liability to the company that they have decided to install a software lockout function on every 3DS unit. This lockout is in the form of a parental code. If the lock is activated, the 3D effect will not function under any circumstance unless the user knows the password. Even the slider on the right side of the 3D screen will not function at all if the lock is initiated.

As stated though, this may simply be a precaution to prevent against any potential lawsuits by angry parents or even gamers. Only time will tell if the 3DS's 3D effect will cause any real world harm. Though 3D has been known to cause eye strain and other such issues with people in the past, there's not much to base an analysis about the 3DS' way of doing the effect.

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