Sony wants Roblox on PlayStation despite “child safety concerns”

Some reports indicate that Sony Interactive Entertainment is considering porting Roblox to PlayStation systems for which the video game publisher had previously voiced concerns about its impact on “child safety” on the platform. Here’s everything we know about it.

Roblox is one of the top PC games out there that is also accessible to users across Android and iOS devices. Roblox’s typical user age ranges from 10 to 16, meaning that children need adult supervision when playing games on the metaverse platform.

Despite Roblox’s best efforts to keep its content family-friendly, there are still plenty of ways to encounter inappropriate material, especially among the site’s younger users. As a result of these concerns, console platforms like PlayStation have opted to avoid them in order to provide a more child-friendly environment.

Now that Roblox has expanded its offerings to include content appropriate for players over the age of 17, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan is eager to bring the game onto their console platform and give gamers a taste of the metaverse.

Sony shows interest to bring Roblox to PlayStation consoles

Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO and PlayStation chief Jim Ryan have shown interest in bringing Roblox to their console platform as they have “relaxed policies” despite certain concerns that the company raised in the past regarding child safety during an investors’ meet in 2022.

However, in a conversation with Axios in 2023, when asked about Roblox’s absence on PlayStation, Jim said, “Historically, because of the large number of children that play on the PlayStation, we have been very careful with regards to opening them up to anything that could potentially exploit them”.

Upon asking about the recent developments, he further added, “Over the last couple of years, however, we have reviewed those policies and relaxed a little on this. We have been conservative for too long, and now we are currently engaging with people at Roblox. We hope that the situation will change.”

Other platforms like Nintendo haven’t commented on Roblox’s lack of availability for Switch, but the console maker has also historically erred on the side of caution in keeping inappropriate content away from kids.