PS4's Euro chief gives short shrift to BBC's couch potato question

PS4's Euro chief gives short shrift to BBC's couch potato question
This evil beast REFUSES to babysit kids

The head of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has insisted that it is up to parents to take responsibility for how long their kids spend gaming, in answer to a strange interview question.

Jim Ryan, talking to BBC Breakfast, made it perfectly clear that he was not prepared to take responsibility for the amount of time kids spend on the PlayStation, following the glittering launch of the PS4.

The perfectly reasonable response came when he was asked what he thought of children spending huge amounts of time in front of the television gaming.

Will somebody please think of the children?

Breakfast's Dominic Laurie asked: "How long do you advise kids to play these games for? Because I know that many parents walk into their...living room at 2pm and their kid is playing it, they walk back in at 6pm and they are still playing it; there's a lot of frustration with parents about the length of time that the kid is rooted to the couch."

"Well, you need to look after your kids a bit better," responded Ryan.

"We feel that parents have considerable responsibility in this. We make games, our industry makes games: some for children and some for adults and we feel that parental responsibility is fundamental here."

We eagerly await an interview with the BBC Director General by Laurie when he asks the same question, although he's unlikely to get quite such a forthright response.

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Patrick Goss

Patrick Goss is the ex-Editor in Chief of TechRadar. Patrick was a passionate and experienced journalist, and he has been lucky enough to work on some of the finest online properties on the planet, building audiences everywhere and establishing himself at the forefront of digital content.  After a long stint as the boss at TechRadar, Patrick has now moved on to a role with Apple, where he is the Managing Editor for the App Store in the UK.