got to love that rateing system...
in the us a nipple can get you almost a ao rating, with only major publishers really able to get away with it, and in europe, fine for anyone age 7, but you show blood your getting a 16 rating.
i dont like the legaly binding thing though, because cod or halo, lets be honest, those are really just T games, hell i would call halo a E game, these rateing don't put correct context to the violence, or even play the game... can you honestly say a kid cant play halo just because it says M on the box?
and the notion of leagly binding just takes individual maturity out of the equation all together.
i was on the wrong end of this type of crack down once with everquest, i started playing it when i was 11, but a year and a half later, they decided no one under 13 can play our game anymore and i got locked out. luckily parental consent allowed me back on after a tech support call. but imagine that if they enforce this with online gameplay too... they cant ensure that the online section of the game will be the same rating as the game, so imagine everyone who plays online there, a game like forza, gran trismo, streetfighter, are no longer able to play online because they were stupid enough to use their real birthday, and not fake it over 18... i know its slippery slope kind of thinking, but say you are 8, and you love streetfighter, and now you are locked out till you are 13, if not 18, due to online... what im suggesting isn't impossible, and what i head about microsoft customer service in the past... they don't care about you at all... remember autistic kid and his live account. forget that someone hacked his account for the kid, it took how long and mass media attention for them to even respond, imagine what they will do with this.