Ofcom's own gaming advice page says it secured child safety changes on PlayStation through its supervision work. Ofcom's own register of regulated platforms, last updated 28 September 2026, does not list PlayStation at all.
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
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In short. Ofcom's advice page for parents of gamers says "through our supervision work, we've secured a number of changes on some of the most popular games, including Roblox, Playstation and Xbox" [1]. The 16-page report Ofcom itself published on that supervision work names the platforms it wrote to and scrutinised: "giving TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat and Roblox the opportunity to be transparent about how they are protecting children" (page 8) [2]. Neither PlayStation nor Xbox appears anywhere in that report. PlayStation does not appear anywhere on Ofcom's own register of categorised services either [3]. Two documented mistakes: four stars.
Ofcom publishes a rolling set of consumer advice pages for parents, written in plain language and updated as the online safety rules bed in. "Parents Power Up! How you can help your child stay safe while gaming online," published 7 September 2026, is one of them: a "Check, Chat, Change" guide to parental controls, age settings and conversations about online strangers [1]. That advice is sound and uncontroversial. Buried in its final section, under the heading "How do online safety rules apply to gaming?", is a different kind of claim: not advice, but a record of what Ofcom says it has achieved.
The claim
"The Online Safety Act applies to online services where users can interact with each other, or create, share or upload content," the page explains, before naming Ofcom as "the UK's online safety watchdog responsible for enforcing these rules." Then: "Through our supervision work, we've secured a number of changes on some of the most popular games, including Roblox, Playstation and Xbox, which are making a difference in keeping children safe online" [1]. This is not a general statement that the law applies to gaming services. It is a specific claim that Ofcom's own supervisory engagement produced named outcomes on three named platforms.
What the supervision report actually covers
Ofcom's supervision of children's safety on major platforms is not a secret process. It produced a public report, "Update: tech firms' responses to our call for action to protect children," published 21 May 2026 under the project name Mercury, setting out in detail which services Ofcom wrote to in March 2026, what it demanded, and how each one responded [2]. Page 8 states the scope plainly: Ofcom's Children's Online Experiences research showed "Facebook, Instagram, Roblox, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube continue to be some of the services most popular with children," and "that is why we set out our demands, giving TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat and Roblox the opportunity to be transparent about how they are protecting children" (page 8) [2]. The report devotes individual sections to each platform's response, with Roblox's own section running from page 12 covering its age-based account changes [2]. Its conclusion names exactly who Ofcom is holding to account: "we will therefore be scrutinising the timeliness and effectiveness of how Snap, Meta and Roblox implement the changes they have committed to make" (page 14) [2]. Six platforms are named across the whole document: Facebook, Instagram, Meta, Roblox, Snapchat and TikTok, alongside YouTube. Neither PlayStation nor Xbox is mentioned once, in any of the report's 16 pages.
Roblox's presence in the gaming advice page's claim is accurate; it is the one platform of the three that genuinely went through this process. PlayStation and Xbox were not written to, did not feature in the call-for-action demands, and are credited with nothing in the one document that actually describes what Ofcom's "supervision work" secured.
PlayStation is not on Ofcom's own list of regulated platforms
Separately from the Mercury supervision process, Ofcom publishes a register of categorised services: the online platforms that meet the user-number and functionality thresholds for extra duties under the Online Safety Act, split into Category 1, Category 2A and Category 2B [3]. Ofcom describes these as "some of the most widely used online services in the UK" [3]. Roblox sits in Category 1, listed as a regulated user-to-user service of type "Gaming service," provider Roblox Corporation [3]. Xbox Network appears too, in Category 2B, also described as a "Gaming service," provider Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited [3]. PlayStation, PlayStation Network and Sony do not appear anywhere on the register, in any of the three categories, checked directly against both the live page and the register's own downloadable PDF [3] [4].
The register is not stale. It carries its own change log, and the entry for 28 September 2026, five days before this check, records Ofcom reassessing and moving Quora between categories: "we have decided to remove Quora from the part of the register for Category 1 services and instead have added Quora to the part of the register for Category 2B services" [3]. Ofcom is actively maintaining this list and adjusting it within days. PlayStation's absence is not an oversight from months ago; it is the current, actively-updated state of Ofcom's own published record of which platforms it has assessed as meeting the thresholds for extra duties. That does not mean PlayStation has no duties at all under the Act; base-level duties on illegal and harmful content apply regardless of categorisation. It does mean Ofcom has not recorded PlayStation anywhere in the register it uses to show the public which platforms it has formally assessed, which makes "secured... through our supervision work" an odd claim to publish about it.
The claims, tested
| Ofcom's own words | What the record shows | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| "Through our supervision work, we've secured a number of changes on some of the most popular games, including Roblox, Playstation and Xbox" [1] | The 16-page report on that supervision work names Facebook, Instagram, Meta, Roblox, Snapchat and TikTok (plus YouTube); PlayStation and Xbox appear zero times [2] | Roblox checks out; Xbox and PlayStation do not appear in the document describing what was secured |
| The same sentence credits PlayStation specifically with changes "secured" by Ofcom's supervision [1] | PlayStation is absent from Ofcom's own register of categorised services across all three categories, current as of a 28 September 2026 update [3] [4] | A platform Ofcom has not listed anywhere in its own published oversight record, credited as a supervision success |
Credit where due
Roblox's inclusion is not a mistake. It genuinely went through Ofcom's call-for-action process, committed to new age-based accounts and chat restrictions, and gets a detailed, specific writeup in the Mercury report naming exactly what it agreed to do [2]. Xbox Network is a genuinely regulated service, correctly listed on Ofcom's own register with real duties attached, even though those duties did not come from the supervision process the advice page describes [3]. And the rest of the "Parents Power Up" page, the Check, Chat, Change advice on settings, conversations and parental controls, is practical and does not overstate what it tells parents to do themselves [1].
Verdict
Four stars, from two documented mistakes. The claim sits in one sentence on a page otherwise built from sound, specific advice, and it names the one platform, Roblox, that actually earns the credit. But a parent reading "Playstation and Xbox" in a sentence about what Ofcom's supervision "secured" has no way of knowing that the regulator's own account of that supervision does not mention either one, or that one of the two does not appear on Ofcom's own list of the platforms it regulates at all.
The star score counts two documented mistakes against Ofcom's own published record: the claim that supervision "secured" changes on PlayStation and Xbox, when the 16-page Mercury report naming which platforms were engaged and what they committed to mentions neither; and PlayStation's total absence from Ofcom's own register of categorised services, an actively-maintained document that recorded a different platform's reassessment five days before this check. Two falls in the 1 to 3 band: four stars; the bands are on the ratings page. This piece makes no finding against Roblox's inclusion in the claim, against the general accuracy of the page's parental advice, or against whether PlayStation's or Xbox's own safety features work; the finding is narrower, that Ofcom's own supervision record does not support crediting either platform through that specific process. Checked directly against the gaming advice page, the Mercury report PDF (all 16 pages, full text), and Ofcom's register of categorised services (the live page and the underlying PDF), all fetched 3 October 2026.
Sources
- Parents Power Up! How you can help your child stay safe while gaming online, Ofcom, published 7 September 2026
- Update: tech firms' responses to our call for action to protect children (PDF), Ofcom, published 21 May 2026
- Online Safety: Register of categorised services and list of emerging Category 1 services, Ofcom, published 30 June 2026, last updated 28 September 2026
- Register of categorised services (PDF), Ofcom