BBC Reports Kinect Causes Red Ring of Death

Greg Tito

PR for Dungeons & Dragons
Sep 29, 2005
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BBC Reports Kinect Causes Red Ring of Death



The BBC Radio 4 program You & Yours dramatizes customers complaining that Kinect caused their Xbox to crash.

Microsoft released Kinect in Europe and the U.K. on November 10th but many people didn't shell out the £130 until the Holidays. Unfortunately, some of those poor souls were disappointed when they hooked up the motion sensor to their Xbox and were only rewarded with the dreaded red ring of death. The BBC program You & Yours had professionals read some customer complaints that were posted on a forum online and spoke to a 10 year old who told the story of what happened when his Dad brought home a Kinect.

"My non-problematic 2008 [Xbox] 360 Pro got red rings of death after playing Kinect two to three times with light use," one woman said.

"I never had a single issue with my Xbox," another said. "I got Kinect for Christmas and the screen started freezing randomly. Then on New Year's Eve, bam, I got the red ring. Very sad."

"Yes, I got the red rings of death on Christmas day," an older gentlemen read. "The very same day my kids got a Kinect."

"We plugged [Kinect] in that day and we had a go on it," said 10 year old Adam Winnifrith. "We only played on it a few times and then when we went to play it on New Year's Eve it had red lights." At first Adam thought that it was malfunctioning because of the three controllers that he had plugged in so he started pressing all of the buttons. "But then when Daddy had a look at it thoroughly, he figured out the proper reason why it didn't work." Adam hasn't been able to use his Xbox with or without Kinect since. "It's quite a shame because we got loads of games for it."

Adam's father James was also disappointed because he wasn't able to have the karaoke contest that he planned for New Year's Eve and was doubly upset because the warranty on his Xbox had expired on December 14th, 2010. "I'm going to contact Microsoft and see if they'll extend the warranty slightly because it's so close," he said. He is sure that the problems he had are due to the Kinect and not some cosmic coincidence.

"It's been working fine for 2.5 years, you plug in something new and within a few days it starts going wrong," said James Winnifrith.

It's possible that these problems only occur with older models of the Xbox, as it seems that many of the complaints come from longtime owners. There is no word from Microsoft on whether Kinect actually causes these problems or if it's all just coincidence, smoke and mirrors. Perhaps if enough people tell their stories like they did on this BBC show, we will get some answers.

Source: BBC [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00x7c32#p00d3xm5]

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Jul 22, 2009
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Onyx Oblivion said:
How much of the 360's power does the Kinect use, anyway?
It has a separate plug if you don't have the 360 slim. So I'd assume minimal.

Man that sucks... Microsoft, sort your shit out ._. Thankfully mine still hasn't broken yet, and my brother has got Kinect and his is still fine.
 

DTWolfwood

Better than Vash!
Oct 20, 2009
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hah i posted on this on a similar forum thread [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.255050-Kinect-an-Xbox-killer]

well sad face for all the folks with the older generation Xbox's guess its Microsoft's way of saying "get the new slim"
 
Apr 28, 2008
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Does this affect people anywhere else, or is it just in the UK? Either way, seems it was a good idea to not buy it...
 

ImprovizoR

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Dec 6, 2009
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Microsoft does it again. Not only they made a useless gimmick but they made it so that it kills the console so you have to buy a new one. Nice business strategy. Oh wait, no it isn't. When people hear about this they will simply choose not to buy Kinect.
 

Pandaman1911

Fuzzy Cuddle Beast
Jan 3, 2011
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I don't like Kinect anyway. I feel they're going about immersion all wrong. Kind of why I didn't buy one, and why my 360 isn't bricked.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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I started combing my hair different, and I got a RRoD!

Seriously, this sounds more like coincidence. Like how every major game "caused" RRoD....
 

mjc0961

YOU'RE a pie chart.
Nov 30, 2009
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Greg Tito said:
Adam's father James was also disappointed because he wasn't able to have the karaoke contest that he planned for New Year's Eve and was doubly upset because the warranty on his Xbox had expired on December 14th, 2010. "I'm going to contact Microsoft and see if they'll extend the warranty slightly because it's so close," he said. He is sure that the problems he had are due to the Kinect and not some cosmic coincidence.

"It's been working fine for 2.5 years, you plug in something new and within a few days it starts going wrong," said James Winnifrith.
So James... You say you've had your 360 and it's been working fine for 2.5 years, but you also claim your warranty expired already? Something about your story stinks. There's a 3 year warranty. Either you've only had it for 2.5 years and you're covered, or you've had it for more than 2.5 years.

Also, I hope this wasn't like that silly BBC show that did that YLOD nonsense where they became a self-parody after they reported that most of the consoles they "fixed" broke again the next day, meaning they didn't actually fix anything and had little knowledge of what was really wrong with the system in the first place.

ImprovizoR said:
Microsoft does it again. Not only they made a useless gimmick but they made it so that it kills the console so you have to buy a new one. Nice business strategy. Oh wait, no it isn't. When people hear about this they will simply choose not to buy Kinect.
Why do people always say that? No you do not have to buy a new one. You can choose to buy a new one, but you don't have to. You can also use the warranty and get a free replacement.
 

GonzoGamer

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Apr 9, 2008
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Samwise137 said:
I can't say I'm surprised
Yea. Especially if he was playing with an older model. Those seemed to get the red ring if you looked at them wrong. It probably had little (if anything) to do with the kinect.
I'm hoping the jasper and slim models don't have this problem; I got my bro-in-law kinect and he has a jasper (Modern Warfare 2) 360.
 

CitySquirrel

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Jun 1, 2010
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I thought the red ring was caused by some little connectors attached to the disk drive coming apart...or something like that.
 

Petromir

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Apr 10, 2010
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Theres not even enough data here to suggests a link. And even if there was corellation does not mean theres any actual link...

Its possible but not hugely likely, there are games out there that already stress the 360 to the max, and it doesnt draw power from an older 360, so theres no real reason here.

Theres possibly a link, but taking this relitively small anount of anecdotal evidence from the press......
 

Midniqht

Beer Quaffer
Jul 10, 2009
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I hadn't heard of this issue regarding the Kinect until now. Maybe there's something with the older systems... who knows? I've got one of the newer ones and there's no problems at all.
 

Akihiko

Raincoat Killer
Aug 21, 2008
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CitySquirrel said:
I thought the red ring was caused by some little connectors attached to the disk drive coming apart...or something like that.
The RRoD covers a wide range of problems really. You get a 3 red lights when any hardware failure occurs in the system.

I think the biggest cause of the RRoD which caused the massive debacle was to do with the the GPU and heat. The motherboard bends/warps when it gets too hot, which causes it to stress the solder joints, eventually destroying them.
 

CitySquirrel

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Jun 1, 2010
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Akihiko said:
The RRoD covers a wide range of problems really. You get a 3 red lights when any hardware failure occurs in the system.

I think the biggest cause of the RRoD which caused the massive debacle was to do with the the GPU and heat. The motherboard bends/warps when it gets too hot, which causes it to stress the solder joints, eventually destroying them.
Right, this is what I had heard... I did not realize it was any hardware failure. Thanks.
 

TerribleAssassin

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Apr 11, 2010
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CitySquirrel said:
I thought the red ring was caused by some little connectors attached to the disk drive coming apart...or something like that.
Over prossessing?


Anyway, could be a major coincidence, could actually be Kinects fault, we'll just find out won't we..