In a recently released “Iwata Asks!“ interview, Nintendo delves into the decisions that went into making the Wii Message Board and discusses some interesting features. The one that might raise the most eyebrows, though, is Iwata’s discussion of the “Play History”, a feature which automatically collects information on what games you’ve been playing and for how long and, currently, it can’t be erased.

The idea behind this functionality came from Iwata wanting parents to get more involved with their children’s play-time and being able to keep track of how much time they spend on the system.

I thought constantly about what we could do to stop games being regarded with hostility in the family. So I came up with a suggestion, perhaps a rather outlandish one! (laughs) What I thought was that if a parent said that their child was only allowed to play games for one hour a day, how about making it so the console actually turns itself off after an hour? I realise the head of a games company shouldn’t think things like that! (laughs)

Fortunately, the Wii won’t be turning off automatically on you, but your Mom, Dad, or spouse will be able to find out if you’ve been logging serious hours on Princess Peach’s Erotic Journey (hey, Nintendo said they weren’t going to shy away from M-rated titles this generation!)