Players worldwide may be getting a bit too hands-on with their Mortal Kombat and Night Trap in the 90s, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (also known as the ESRB) provides a clearcut system to tell parents and other shoppers what's appropriate for the younger set. Starting off in video games, the service has expanded to include mobile apps on phones and other forms of software over the years.
The current ESRB rating system typically goes from E for Everyone to M for Mature, but there are two rarer ratings at each end of the scale. For preschool-focused games typically created to educate, there's the EC for Early Childhood marker. At the other end, for games and applications that are only suitable for adults, there's the AO for Adults Only lettering. These products often contain sexually explicit content, and all three console makers have banned anything with an AO rating from their platforms. Only 29 games have received the marker, all released on PC only (outside of the sole Phillips CD-i exception).
Knowing the above makes Amazon's listed AO rating of a Switch Pro Controller all the more hilarious and perplexing. Listed at both the top of the store page and the product description, the $60 wireless controller sold directly by Nintendo is somehow inappropriate to all but the most mature of Switch gamers. This is all despite the fact that the ESRB does not currently rate controllers or other hardware as part of their ongoing service. Games and phone apps are the only products designed for the system, so the controller's rating is nonsensical from every angle.
How did this screw-up occur? Could it be that Amazon product testers got too carried away testing the console's Mario Tennis Aces ended in such a violent rage that the controller ended up lodged in the TV screen? Or, it might just be the case that someone at Amazon hit the wrong button on the backend? It's probably that last one, but the first two options are way more fun to think about. In any case, neither Amazon nor the ESRB has commented on the legitimacy of the rating or if future gamepads will be divided into age-appropriate groups in the future.
All kidding aside, sites like Amazon are often full of tiny logical inconsistencies like a Switch Pro Controller that's Adults Only. It's great fun to browse them late into the night when sleep is all but impossible. From laptop holders for steering wheels to a book all about how to avoid large ships, mixups like this let people laugh at one of the biggest corporations in the world right before they give them all their money for groceries
Source: Amazon
