Asian Tech Press (SEP 06) -- China's recent crackdown on online video games has limited the amount of time underage users can play online games to 3 hours per week.

The National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA) issued a Notice on Further Stricter Management to Effectively Preventing Minors from Indulging in Online Games, which stipulates that all online game enterprises are not allowed to provide minors gaming services besides 8:00 pm to 9:00 pm on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and other public holidays. 

Chinese players' access to online games requires real-name verification and log-in systems, so companies could strictly identify youth players. Gaming companies, including Netease and Tencent, flocked to update their user terms of service to support this policy.

Just when everyone thought the new rules only involved Chinese client and mobile games, PSN (PlayStation Network) China also updated its terms of service and user agreement. PSN China users under 18 will be restricted, while overseas accounts remain unrestricted.

The updated Terms of Service and User Agreement for PSN China Service states that in order to comply with applicable Chinese laws and Chinese policies, as well as the requirements of the relevant authorities to establish anti-addiction measures for minors, the following restrictions will apply to PSN China account users who are under the age of 18 after real-name verification.

PSN China account users under 18 may not exceed 3 hours of cumulative use per day on weekends and must use less than 1.5 hours per day during other periods. The game is also prohibited from 10 pm to 8 am every other day. Once the game timeout is over, PSN will force the user to quit the account.

It can be seen that this new regulation requires all types of online games, including console games, to be rectified (including single-player games downloaded from the Internet, games with networking capabilities, and games that require networking verification services).