Xbox named in Anglesey house fire

by James Ransom-Wiley { Nov 23rd 2005 at 2:00PM }

As the Xbox 360 launched across North America yesterday, the original Xbox was starting a devastating house fire in North Wales. Thankfully, an unconscious woman was rescued from the flames before they could consume her. The Xbox in question had been left unattended in a bedroom.

Reports of faulty power cords urged Microsoft to issue a massive recall last February. It looks like one unit might have escaped that recall, only to go out in a blaze!

[via Playbomb.com]

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

David @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Wow, death by Xbox. Scary, scary stuff.

Fuzz @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Ya, the Xbox sure is a "killer Console"

hehehe *snicker*.

robotplague @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

It's been both a great/bad week for MS. First theres numerous reports of crashing 360's and now this.

Spence @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Man that is fucking low number 2.

Hah, I'm still laughing though.. I am just as bad.

Justin McElroy @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

There's no such thing as a faulty power chord, in my view. They all rock equally hard. Is there anything finer than a FACE MELTING POWER CHORD? No sir, there's nothing. Except the fists of Clubber Lang.

Jay @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

bloody hell. First consoles start breaking and melting, now its causing house fires? Nintendo should use that for their Rev advertising campaign "No life threatening faults yet!"

what is it with crap hardware these days?

Spence @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Man that is fucking low number 2.

Hah, I'm still laughing though.. I am just as bad.

Toxic Bomber @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

HAHA...0wn3D!!

XD @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Considering they did a recall and that many other consoles in the past have had issues with hardware, this isn't news to me. It sucks for that family for sure, but don't blame MS for "missing the recall". Its up to you to bring your recall in, they can't force you to, just like a car recall. If its a car you take it more seriously? They wouldn't even know how to contact everyone; all they can do is make the information available, then they've covered their a$$es.

funkonaut @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

XD, true, but the fact still remains that Microsoft sold to consumers a power supply that can and does burst into flames.

Sure, they can't get sued, but they could've built a power supply that works properly.

Oh wait... this is Microsoft we're talking about. Never mind.

scoot @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Arghh why do people think its the power cords when ITS THE CONSOLE thats faulty. MS was too cheap to recall the console and instead just issued power cords with integrated circuit breakers.

Its still entirely possible for your Xbox's to go up in smoke , you've just gotta hope the cicuit breaker will cut it off before your house is on fire.

Mr_Hyde @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

I sent in for the recall and all I got was a new original power cord. I thought they were supposed to have a little breaker box on them, like a hair dryer.

XD @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

funkonaut,
i'm not trying to make excuses for MS, all i'm saying is they adverstized this issue and anyone who has an xbox should have checked if they were affected.
It's no different then any other recall, its serious if it's a car that can catch fire too.
My point is, MS asside, this stuff happens with many other things and many companies. This article is just here get MS haters posting. What it should do is state how to check if your xbox should be recalled in case you didn't hear about this.

jc @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Mr_Hyde, only certian Xboxes got the power cord with the inline breaker.

Microsoft had several suppliers for their internal powersupply board, one of them (foxpro maybe??) made a power board that had very little solder and poor connectors on it. With a little bit of pressure (well below normal wear and tear) these connectors would start to break away from the board and short out to other compnents nearby.

I think MS took this opportunity to get information from all the xbox users and issue cheap power cords to everyone. The Xboxes with the dangerous powersupply boards were issued the upgraded 'breaker' cords. This didn't actually fix the xboxes, but at least made it less likely to short out and catch fire... the breakers will switch off power once it detects that the xbox is shorting out.

I have fixed a few of these, and it is a pretty simple job... I can't understand why Microsoft didn't recall these units.

Laughing Man @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Wow.

http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=392599

http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/xbox-360/hours-old-and-pgr3-crashing-like-mad-138978.php

Does anyone else find the fact that there's a specific error message (either 74 or 79) related to overheating already ready in the box's OS?

ZeroCorpse @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

Other game systems have killed people!

I distinctly remember the NGage being responsible for someone being beaten to death; Not because the attackers wanted the NGage, but because the thing was just so stupid that they figured anyone who would buy one shouldn't be allowed to breed.

Anonymous rep @ Dec 18th 2005 10:01PM

It should be noted that on the official recall notice, Xbox specifically stated that there was a shock hazard. The primary reason was due to, effectively and quite unofficially, morons pulling the cords out and/or abusing them. Quite frankly, you could have a house fire and then blame it on your TV - especially if you have a mouse chewing on the cord of your TV. Can we have some more facts here before we go into guessing games?

And with all the snide comments about the Xbox issue - have any of you Sony phanboys noted that your beloved PS2 has a power supply that "melts"? Go read the recall notice on those that's posted at Wal-Mart. It specifically states that - so get the hell of your high horses.