It's not like any house with an Xbox360 in, is going to be frequented by rocket scientists and the like..

Infact, it's a very good way of natural selection...

I'll get my coat...

Where's the story exactly?

Could've been a router, printer, laptop or many of electronic devices power supply, this kind of thing happens daily across the world.

Moral of the story: treat potentially dangerous equipment with respect.

...is a typical example of American news scaremongering. "Parents, sit up, pay attention, GAMES CAN BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN."

"The red ring of death is connected to overheating of the interna-"

CUT!

He said overheating, that's all we need. BE AFRAID!

On another note, that's the first time I've seen a 360's power brick. Holy shit! My Spectrum's got a smaller power brick than that thing!

When asked for comment, Ballmer responded:

"The XBOX 360 and associated peripherals are just a work in progress, things like this are bound to happen"

see MS are evil, not only do they admit releasing unfunished buggy products, but they are activly trying to kill their customers......maybe the owner refused to upgrade to vista?

Quality reporting here. What is next? Aliens raped my mother?

Burn, burn, burn, I went down and the flames, they got higher

Burn, burn, burn red rings of fire, red rings of fire.

This is why we should all wipe our xBoxes and replace their OS with a linux kernel!

"But the company claims gamers can minimise the risks by unplugging the console and avoiding bending the power brick’s cord."

Better yet, don't buy XBox and avoid all of the risk.

I wonder who picks the tab on this? I am sure the insewerence (deliberate smelling pisstake) co passes the claim straight to MS, if not why not?

Paris, because I can (or I cannot more like).

but when hardware is built like Vista, not that funny anymore.

But $100,000 worth of damage??? Really???

More MS 360 bashing by Reg hardware! Its not even discreet any more. Would this have made the page if it was any other household device?

...but I still love my 360...

Isn't this interesting? We all joyfully pounce on every little hardware defect in an Apple product (including sparking power supplies!), but when Microsoft get into manufacturing hardware, they manage to build something that burns down houses and nearly kills people.

Gives one a sense of context, that does.

:)

In Arkansas?

You could burn down the whole state and still have money left over for a Baptist monster truck rally for that much.

The XBox 360 is HOT!

Sorry. (not really)

What recall is that then on the power bricks

as far as i know there has been no recall on xbox 360 power bricks

and xbox 1's dont have power bricks

just power leads

i smell bull sh1t

MS "claims gamers can minimise the risks by unplugging the console."

Leave it up to Microsoft to point out that removing electricity from electrical devices reduces the chances of electrical fires...

In a related brief, Server 2008 was found to be the least likely OS to crash while the computer is powered off.

</cynic>

That was my first reaction.

http://www.realtor.com/options/interimsearch.aspx?source=a15696&ctid=1140&mnp=17&mxp=16&typ=7

Umm thats not an xbox 360 in their back drop, I wonder how many americans have thrown away their original Xbox's because of it....

@ AC - Microsoft suxorz: How you managed to type http://www.reghardware.co.uk instead of http://www.4chan.com or http://www.gaiaonline.com is really beyond me. Please try again and have a nice day.

@ Scott - Give it a rest: Electronics that catch on fire, or set other items on fire are a staple of El Reg reporting.

You can mitigate this risk by unplugging it? Great!

I hear you can alleviate Vista's performance issues and improve its security by unplugging your PC too. :)

Like the rabid reporting of Sony laptop batteries?

Ever noticed the Xbox owners shout foul almost instantly, whilst at the same time love running around like idiots foaming at the mouth, when it's some other manufactuers hardware...

Seems they are VERY worried...

This is El Reg, the XBox 360 is electronic hardware and it was involved in a news-worthy event, hence the article. And El Reg frequently reports on household appliances attacking their human masters! Have you not heard of RoTM?

To be fair to MS, it sounds like it was the stupid owner's fault for putting the power supply in a poorly ventilated location and it probably won't be long before the same idiot is back in the news when his hair-dryer electrocutes him in the bath, although you may have to go El Reg's sister site "The Coiffurer" to read about it...

I mean the size of the damaged area looks like my porch, not that my porch looks like a fire ravaged hovel!

Forgotten the exploding mobile phone? Or the flaming Dells?

If you are designing a power brick you should expect it to be kicked under an entertainment center, covered in dust with a severe kink in the cable. This is the natural environment of the power brick. This is bad design pure and simple, done to save a few bucks, a few inches of space, or a few decibels of noise.

Utterly unacceptable.

Too bad they cant issue a downloadable patch to fix this one eh?

</humor>

The V1 does have a brick, my mate's V1 power lead fits my V2 console. Go figure.

Also: all power bricks heat up. he probably had something flammable on or near the brick. these things happen. I've never had an issue with my 240v brick... hmmm... maybe it's Australian mains power that makes Xbox 360s more reliable?

They should be designed for stupid users, being accidentally covered or the cat shedding on them. etc. Designing for safety is pretty simple. Polyfuses (resettable fuse thingies) can be used to kill power within the unit when it reaches, say, 80 deg.

What I want to know though was if the person was running pirated games? Perhaps this was a new form of DRM.

I'll go with you on that one, if you market a power brick separate to the console, you can hardly blame people for wanting to hide it out of the way as it looks ugly as sin. Although who knows what he had stuck on top of it which may have held the heat in more.

Still at least his console won't suffer the RROD now. :)

HFOD = Hot Fire Of Death

I can't believe you used Xbox 360 and reliable in the same sentence.

How the fck else are you meant to store a power brick?

IIRC There was a recall/warning about the figure-8 lead that powers the original Xbox.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/19/xbox_recall_nofix/

Playing pirated software- or games that are rated too old for you- WILL CAUSE YOUR XBOX TO EXPLODE!

You just know that Sony will now probably be packing their consoles with C4 so when they blow up it's a bigger explosion than the Xbox. I can just imagine the comments in a week or two- "OMFG! The Xbox sucks! My PS3 did a full million dollars of damage!!!11! MS cant even make a console that explodes properly!"

Paris because that Xbox is hot.

News worthy? I come onto this page to read about the latest on hardware\electronics developments not to read story's that even the daily sport would have second thoughts about printing.

Xbox owners defending Microsoft on this on.

in short, YOUR HOUSE SHOULD NOT BURN DOWN REGARDLESS OF HOW YOU TREAT YOUR POWER BRICK.

I would imagine a global recall may be on the cards, before someone gets killed...

"Ever noticed the Xbox owners shout foul almost instantly, whilst at the same time love running around like idiots foaming at the mouth, when it's some other manufactuers hardware..."

I've noticed the very same thing with Sony owners, if not more so. And Nintendo owners are a holy terror if you dare take His Holiness Shigsy's name in vain. There are plenty of insecure fanboys on all sides it seems.

and I thought it got hot so I could cook my breakfast whilst gaming!

* Preheat Xbox360 for 1 hour whilst playing favourite game.

* Make a little tray out of tinfoil.

* Place on top of power brick and add a little olive oil.

* Crack open egg and pour contents into foil tray.

* Continue playing game for around 10 minutes.

* Serve up in a butty.

Yum!

With their shoddy products, M$ are finally able to put people in real danger. How we've longed for this day!

C'mon XBox users, get abusing those power bricks. A few more like this and we'll be able to class-action M$ into oblivion!

"Microsoft has already recalled thousands of power bricks worldwide because of worries over a potential fire risk. But the company claims gamers can minimise the risks by unplugging the console and avoiding bending the power brick’s cord."

Nope, that was the XBOX and the recall of the power lead

Junior wanted a 360 or PS3 for his birthday....and after a few days of deliberation he'd decided on the 360. No amount of pleading to build quality issues would persuade him otherwise.

Naturally, from various stories I'm worried about RROD and so on. But I figure there's 6 months of what we call warm weather here and, if it dies during the summer months, I'll swap it for a PS3. If it doesn't, it's not likely to get any hotter during the rest of the year.

But, contrary to what I expected, the power brick isn't even warm to the touch and the console is, at least to my ears used to a PC in the room, relatively quiet and similary, only relatively warm.

It's early days, of course, but is the hillbilly 110v version different from our Great British 240v?