PSA: Xbox One "Backwards Compatibility" Prank Is Bricking Consoles

[Roxor]

Talk about poor design. If you screw up the OS, you should be able to reinstall it, not have to buy a new machine.

 

[Candidus]

I love you 4chan. I always have, and as this jape reminds me I always will.

Thanks for the laugh. It's going to last all day.

 

[Kyogissun]

Kotaku is saying... 4chan is responsible...

You know, 4chan does do a good job messing with stupid people and honestly, if you ARE stupid enough to believe it (And not do the research) you deserve to have your console bricked.

But I don't know how I feel about that source pointing the finger like it does. Just seems like more Kotaku click bait dicketry like usual.

 

[Squilookle]

And to think it all could have been avoided if it actually -was- backwards compatible.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Has anyone fallen for this? How many months did Microsoft issue releases, statements and videos very clearly informing everyone that the was no backwards compatibility?

 

[Akytalusia]

yeah... 'freezone.reboot'... that breaks every red flag threshold. i can't imagine anyone of average net savvy falling for that. i pity the console scrubs who did, though. that's an expensive lesson.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Oh come ON. This is almost as bad as a "delete system32" batch file that claimed it would type a triforce.

"freezone.reboot" raises literally ALL of the flags. ALL of them. And then some more.

I work in IT and, in my experience, the average user (or any device) has literally no red flags to raise over anything.

 

[Icehearted]

I think this demonstrates how much a desired feature backward compatibility really is. Too bad console developers so rarely give the people what they really want.

Backwards compatibility is friggin expensive. The reason that the PS3 was $600 at launch was due to the cost of adding backwards comparability. If their was none it would have been closer to $400 instead. Don't know about you but I am not willing to pay that much for a system that I have no intention of playing previous generation games on.

Yeah, it can be expensive, but there are ways to implement this sort of thing assuring users will not be facing obsolescence for trading up. The console business is adept at doing their shit backward, and there are a lot of companies that would rather their customers invest in the newest thing than support whatever was not immediately profitable upon release. A key element for a good launch can include allowing the new console and it's adopter access to a well established library of per-existing games that don't necessarily have the latest graphics or features, but are at least very well made by people experienced enough with the former hardware to have produced fantastic titles at or near the end of last generation's cycle.

That said, I think the excuse about cost effectiveness is all too often exactly that, an excuse. I'm not apt to drinking the kool-aid on that one.

 

[loa]

1) Why can you even brick a console by dabbling in its options menu? What the fuck.
I can not even do that with my pc if I tried.

2) Why isn't the darn thing backwards compatible in the first place? There's no excuse.
No switch to vastly different architecture so soft emulation should be very doable and also no game library for the xone but I guess having something -anything- over the ps4 is against their pr strategy of being as incompetent as possible or something and that is saying something if the competition thinks proprietary memory sd cards that cost more and offer less are a-ok.

 

[AgentLampshade]

Aw man, I can just imagine it now.

"U.K Teen Attempts To Make Console Backwards Compatible, Breaks His Console."

 

[RicoADF]

I think this demonstrates how much a desired feature backward compatibility really is. Too bad console developers so rarely give the people what they really want.

Every Sony console has been backwards compatible and I believe the Xbox 360 was as well, the only reason the new gen isn't is due to changing the hardware to x86 processors (which will make future consoles far easier to make backwards compatible to these ones). They had to do it to stay competitive. Still sucks though and wish they had of offered a 'special edition' console with the backwards compatibility (aka PS3/Xbox 360 built into the new machines) at a higher price point, I bet a few people would have gladly paid the premium price.

I work in IT and, in my experience, the average user (or any device) has literally no red flags to raise over anything.

Ah the joys of receiving a call "my *insert device name* doesn't work" only to find out it's something so simple that you wonder how they survive the day :-/

 

[RikuoAmero]

1) Why can you even brick a console by dabbling in its options menu? What the fuck.
I can not even do that with my pc if I tried.

2) Why isn't the darn thing backwards compatible in the first place? There's no excuse.
No switch to vastly different architecture so soft emulation should be very doable and also no game library for the xone but I guess having something -anything- over the ps4 is against their pr strategy of being as incompetent as possible or something and that is saying something if the competition thinks proprietary memory sd cards that cost more and offer less are a-ok.

I get a little pissed at the amount of times I see "It can just emulate the last console! It's more powerful!" or words to that effect.

No it can't. Not only is it a completely different architecture (360's PowerPC versus Xbone's x86), but the Xbone simply doesn't have enough horsepower. The Xbone has more, but slower cores (eight 1.8 GHz) versus the 360 which has fewer but faster (three 3.2GHz). I honestly cannot think of a way to get a bunch of slower cores to act like faster ones. You're asking for the Xbone to not only translate PowerPC low-level code into x86 code in real time (which is still taxing on a CPU) but to do it while the slower cores are acting like they're faster. You can't simply say "then get two 1.8GHz cores, that's 3.6GHz isn't it?" For one, you can't do that, and two, the core you have emulating needs to be a LOT faster than what it is emulating.
Even if someone were somehow able to write a working program, at best, it'd run games at only a few FPS.

 

[shirkbot]

Kotaku is saying... 4chan is responsible...

You know, 4chan does do a good job messing with stupid people and honestly, if you ARE stupid enough to believe it (And not do the research) you deserve to have your console bricked.

But I don't know how I feel about that source pointing the finger like it does. Just seems like more Kotaku click bait dicketry like usual.

Wait, I'm confused: Creating a prank that can, and does, render a $500 piece of technology totally useless is just "messing with stupid people," but Kotaku accusing 4chan of creating it is being a dick?

OT: Reiterating on the above, whoever made this is a proper ***. Nobody deserves to lose that much money just because of a wish and some ignorance, or really for any reason. I'd be more supportive of the lack of backwards compatibility if it wasn't just more old wine to be sold in new bottles. They do realize that once it goes digital, they're going to lose this excuse, yes?

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

That's a dick move. You pay $500 for a console and you brick it in a way that voids the warranty. A really big dick move.

 

[Strazdas]

Oh come ON. This is almost as bad as a "delete system32" batch file that claimed it would type a triforce.

"freezone.reboot" raises literally ALL of the flags. ALL of them. And then some more.

beat me to it. I mean how can you enter a reboot command an expect it to be a unlock. sigh.

ALso is it really brcking consoles? Does it keep rebooting before allowing you to enter developer console to turn it off or something? The thing surely has some form of BIOS (otherwise it would not function) so you should be able to reset that there shouldnt you? I mean worst case scenario format the drive and restore factory default OS? Oh, wait, you cant, it wont allow you to isntall OS from anywhere but internet.

1) Why can you even brick a console by dabbling in its options menu? What the fuck.
I can not even do that with my pc if I tried.

2) Why isn't the darn thing backwards compatible in the first place? There's no excuse.
No switch to vastly different architecture so soft emulation should be very doable and also no game library for the xone but I guess having something -anything- over the ps4 is against their pr strategy of being as incompetent as possible or something and that is saying something if the competition thinks proprietary memory sd cards that cost more and offer less are a-ok.

1. Technically you can. You could set bios in such a way that you would crash to bluescreen when loading drivers and leave auto-restart-on-bluescreen and you essentially have same thing as the current Xbone with these settings.
2. There is differences in architecture. Not only that, but the new Xbox has a SLOWER CPU than Xbox 360, which makes CPU demanding games pretty much impossible to play on it.

I work in IT and, in my experience, the average user (or any device) has literally no red flags to raise over anything.

Sadly this is truth. I remmeber back when people still used Floppy drives i would recieve a call from a person saying his CD isnt working. So i asked him what he was doing. Turns out it didnt fit into floppy drive so he took scissors and cut the thing to fit in. Nowhere in this process he though that this might destroy the CD.

 

[TKretts3]

Hopefully the individuals who did this can be identified and punished accordingly. That anyone would do this is appalling. At the very least the victims should obtain compensation.

 

[loa]

2. There is differences in architecture. Not only that, but the new Xbox has a SLOWER CPU than Xbox 360, which makes CPU demanding games pretty much impossible to play on it.

So why doesn't microsoft fucking explain that cause all I've heard from them on that is "well you want backwards compatibility? You must be really backwards lawl" implying that yes we could do that but we won't, instead we will mock you for wanting it.

This shit wouldn't be able to fly if they just flat out stated it's not doable instead of making it some dumb trend thing.
People can be convinced it's there and locked in the first place just because of that.

 

[Deshin]

I think this demonstrates how much a desired feature backward compatibility really is. Too bad console developers so rarely give the people what they really want.

Backwards compatibility is friggin expensive. The reason that the PS3 was $600 at launch was due to the cost of adding backwards comparability. If their was none it would have been closer to $400 instead. Don't know about you but I am not willing to pay that much for a system that I have no intention of playing previous generation games on.

At first, but now even all the slim PS3s without the "backwards compatibility" can play a good two thirds of the PS2 library. So after a while they figured it out without adding an emotion engine chip to the motherboard.