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US President Barack Obama tells parents to get their kids off the Xbox
US President Barack Obama has taken a swipe at the Xbox by telling parents they must “put away the Xbox” and get their kids into bed at a reasonable hour.
The speech, made at the 100th anniversary of the forming of the NAACP, Obama was trying to encourage parents to participate more in their children’s lives.
“We can’t tell our kids to do well in school and then fail to support them when they get home,” he said. “You can’t just contract out parenting. For our kids to excel, we have to accept our responsibility to help them learn. That means putting away the Xbox. Putting our kids to bed at a reasonable hour. It means attending those parent-teacher conferences and reading to our children and helping them with their homework.”
There is an irony here, in that he advertised on Xbox Live during his presidential campaign, in order to get the young vote.
Microsoft did the politically correct thing by not taking the president to task, but instead agreed with him…too a point. In its official response, the company said, “We agree with President Obama that it’s a time for families to work together so that kids use media in ways that are safe, healthy and balanced. Xbox 360 is the only console gaming system that has a timer feature allowing parents to set time limits for their kids, as well as parent controls to enable parents to set limits on what their kids are playing and watching.”
Unofficially, the head honchos at Microsoft can’t be too happy they were singled out, and are garnering all the attention. Having the head of arguably the most powerful country on the planet dissing your product would not have execs at the company jumping for joy. Then again, taking the philosophical line, that old and well-used adage, any publicity is good publicity could probably come into play.
