Parental control

As a parent, it's not always easy to keep an eye on your children's time spent with entertainment devices. The Nintendo Switch Parental Controls smart device app is a free smart device app which you can link with Nintendo Switch to easily monitor what and how your children are playing. If you do not have a smart device you can also set certain restrictions on Nintendo Switch directly.

Monitor your child’s gameplay time.

In the Nintendo Switch Parental Controls smart device app, you can set a time limit for how long your child is allowed to play. When it’s time, an alarm will be triggered on Nintendo Switch to let them know their play time is up.

In the Nintendo Switch Parental Controls smart device app, you can also comfortably monitor whether your children are keeping to the set time or not. By using the "Suspend Software" feature, you can set it so that the game turns off automatically when your child’s gameplay time is up.

Monitor what your child is playing.

There's even a function in the Nintendo Switch Parental Controls smart device app where you can see a report of which video games your child has been playing, and for how long.

In addition to seeing what your children have been playing daily, you can also receive a monthly play report of your child from the Nintendo Switch Parental Controls smart device app.

At a glance, you can see what kind of games your children are interested in.

“Can I restrict games according to my child’s age?”

You can restrict your child’s gaming access based on their age. The following settings are available:

Prevent children from playing games that are inappropriate for their age

You can set which games can be played based on the PEGI age rating.

Restrict communication with other users

You can restrict your child’s ability to exchange messages and images with other users. This restriction can also be set for individual games.

The Nintendo Switch Parental Controls app does not include settings for the Nintendo Switch Online app. To set restrictions for the Nintendo Switch Online app, please refer to your smart device settings.

Restrict the ability of posting screenshots to social network services

You can restrict your child’s ability to post screenshots captured on Nintendo Switch to social network services.

Please note: it is also possible to set all the age-based restrictions listed above via the Nintendo Switch console, without using the Nintendo Switch Parental Controls app.