back to article Microsoft: Don't listen to 4chan ... especially the bit about bricking Xbox Ones

Microsoft is warning Xbox One owners to not fiddle with the operating system of their shiny new toy in an attempt to run games written for the previous 360 model. Xbox One 4chan infographic DON'T try this at home, or anywhere else "To be clear there is no way to make your Xbox One backwards compatible & performing steps to …

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  1. TonyJ
    WTF?

    I genuinely do not understand...

    ...what drives these malicious little snotrags to put information out that they know will cause damage to someones devices.

    Scumbags.

    That is all.

    1. rhydian

      Re: I genuinely do not understand...

      It's spoilt 14 year olds who've never had to pay for any of their kit and find the misfortune of others funny.

      1. S4qFBxkFFg

        Re: I genuinely do not understand...

        "It's spoilt 14 year olds who've never had to pay for any of their kit and find the misfortune of others funny."

        To be fair, finding "the misfortune of others funny" isn't unique to particular ages - briefly browsing the Reg forums on any tangentially political topic will demonstrate that.

        1. NumptyScrub

          Re: I genuinely do not understand...

          quote: "To be fair, finding "the misfortune of others funny" isn't unique to particular ages - briefly browsing the Reg forums on any tangentially political topic will demonstrate that."

          It's universal enough to the point where some languages actually have specific terms for it e.g. schadenfreude

          Some people are gullible, and some people will seek to exploit this. Confidence tricksters, banking institutions, politicians and trolls all exploit the gullible, and the only proper fix is to eradicate gullibility. Any other measure is simply a delaying tactic.

          Note how governments always prefer to criminalise (certain types of) exploitation of people rather than pay to educate them to a standard where they are no longer exploitable, but somehow refusal to honour campaign or manifesto promises goes completely unpunished... ;)

          1. Ted Treen
            Boffin

            @NumptyScrub - Re: I genuinely do not understand...

            "...Confidence tricksters, banking institutions, politicians...all exploit"

            A degree of tautology there, perhaps?

            1. NumptyScrub
              Unhappy

              Re: @NumptyScrub - I genuinely do not understand...

              quote: "A degree of tautology there, perhaps?"

              I may have said what I intended to say in a manner that caused unnecessary tautological repetition, yes ^^;

            2. Simon Westerby 1

              Re: @NumptyScrub - I genuinely do not understand...

              tautology again within a week! lol....

              The reg educating the masses ;)

              1. Dave 126 Silver badge

                I genuinely do not understand...

                > I genuinely do not understand... why MS made it so easy to brick.

                Quite. Going back a few years, the beauty of a console like the Sega Megadrive (Genesis) was that it just worked, whereas a DOS PC of the period required faffing around with config.sys and autoexec.bat, on top of troubleshooting awkward hardware combinations and IRQs.

                The upside was that experience gained as a teenager making games run became handy later when making productivity software behave.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re:misfortune

        They already have a Xbone, isn't that mis-fortunate enough?

      3. Alan W. Rateliff, II

        Re: I genuinely do not understand...

        Two things on this. First, given surveys for the past decade, formal and informal, in the gaming, virus-writing, hacking, and forum worlds of the Internet, this lone stereotype has not been valid for a very long time. Middle-aged miscreants serve as good portion of the population of these dark corners of the technology world. They may have started out as basement dwelling PFYs and tend to help usher in the same via their antics, but they are indeed middle-aged giving a healthy mix of children of all ages.

        And secondly, I noticed this in the DM article, amongst others: that the 4chan thread "has since been deleted." This gives the false impression that 4chan mods or admins actively killed the thread in an attempt to hide it or give them cover. As has been noted by numerous tear-downs of 4chan, threads will age-out of the system and be replaced as newer threads are posted and thrive. Then to be more accurate, this prank originated in /b/, not just 4chan, so give the 'tards credit (or infamy) where due and let the others live in peace.

        Not a rally for 4chan, I just prefer factual journalistic analysis.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I genuinely do not understand...

      This does successfully turn the Xbox One into a device with the MP3, CD and media streaming playback capabilities of the PS4....

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I genuinely do not understand...

      Xbox One: Open enough to brick, but too closed to let you control the device.

    4. This post has been deleted by its author

    5. Tom 7

      Re: I genuinely do not understand...

      why MS made it so easy to brick.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I genuinely do not understand why MS made it so easy to brick.

        I do. It took AGES to design the woefully inadequate thermal design that guarenteed locked in gamers would buy replacement consoles for that generation.

        80m Xbox360 sales to 30m games is a marketing man's dream come true, surely?

        They didn't bother this time, and just implemented EasyBrick (tm) in software,. Guess they had hoped they could keep it under wraps for 12 months, rather than 12 days thou.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I genuinely do not understand why MS made it so easy to brick.

          Nice lie, but Microsoft have actually sold over 800 million Xbox 360 games - Kinect Adventures alone sold over 20 million copies...

          http://www.vgchartz.com/platform/7/xbox-360/

    6. Piro Silver badge

      Re: I genuinely do not understand...

      Trolling people who honestly think Microsoft bothered to code some incredible (3.2GHz 3 core with HT PowerPC) emulation for an 8 core 1.75GHz Jaguar x86-64 system.

      The real problem here is - why the hell are options available that can brick the system? Why not simply have Microsoft set a flag on your account to allow you to access the dev options through a simple request?

      Even then, there should be a goddamn factory reset button somewhere to get back to where you started.

      1. DrXym

        Re: I genuinely do not understand...

        "Trolling people who honestly think Microsoft bothered to code some incredible (3.2GHz 3 core with HT PowerPC) emulation for an 8 core 1.75GHz Jaguar x86-64 system."

        Well they did with the 360 so it's not entirely unreasonable to suppose they might again.

        But Microsoft probably took one look at what Sony did with the PS3 - eventually dropping BC and reissuing a few "remastered" games - and decided it's easier to not bother. They'll probably bung out a few tools so devs can "remaster" (i.e. produce a recompiled port) games to the XB1 and throw out a cloud gaming service to cover the rest at some point.

    7. Lottie

      Re: I genuinely do not understand...

      I agree with you on this one as it doesn't seem to have any obvious flaw and really, if you have both consoles, you're obviously going to try something that means much less hassle to swap games around.

      I would genuinely like to hear the motivation behind the creator of this.

      The "iOS7 makes your phone waterproof" thing I have less sympathy -that isn't to say "none", though -with folk over as the big warning/ nonsense that the OS affecting the hardwares physical properties.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I genuinely do not understand...

        it's 4chan, this is par for the course. /b/ is where anonymous started, isn't it? where they'd hack sites for the lulz, before anon got political and essentially far too serious for /b/ anymore.

        what's surprising is that anyone saw this on /b/ and decided to follow the steps. if you're going to cruise the posts of /b/ you've got to be aware that 80% of what you're going to see is p0rn, 10% is graphics like this that are either trolling, or funny, or insulting and 9% is pictures of cats every saturday. (and 1% is pictures of sinks until the OP gets permabanned).

      2. CommanderGalaxian
        Go

        Re: I genuinely do not understand...

        >>I would genuinely like to hear the motivation behind the creator of this.

        Presumably to show what a pile of shite the XBOX one is.

      3. CommanderGalaxian
        Go

        Re: I genuinely do not understand...

        >>I would genuinely like to hear the motivation behind the creator of this.

        Take your pick:

        A) To show what a pile of shite the XBOX one is.

        B) To highlight the density of those stupid enough to buy one.

      4. tomsk

        Re: I genuinely do not understand...

        Yeah, I think the xbone one takes things too far, but the drown-your-iPhone one is surely hilarious. It's like driving your car into a tree at 50mph because some stranger's told you it will make it faster; an act so stupid that you forfeit any right to sympathy.

    8. Fihart

      Re: I genuinely do not understand...

      Who you calling snotrags ?

      Signed, Sony.

    9. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I genuinely do not understand...

      The internet allows them to cause mischief with no risk of any consequences. If they tried it at school they'd get thrashed by the people they did it to.

    10. Greg D

      Re: I genuinely do not understand...

      I can think of two reasons:

      - To make enough people do it, in turn forcing MS to make the thing backward compatible (or at least acknowledge it was a mistake not to). After all, the 360 was just another x86 PC-in-a-box.

      - To point out the fact that MS made their console so easy to brick

      On the whole though, anyone stupid enough to follow advice from 4chan deserves what they get.

      1. Jordan Davenport

        Re: I genuinely do not understand...

        "After all, the 360 was just another x86 PC-in-a-box."

        No, the 360 was PowerPC-based, not x86. The original Xbox, the Xbone, and the PS4, on the other hand, are just x86 PCs in varying degrees of shiny boxes.

      2. RAMChYLD Bronze badge

        Re: I genuinely do not understand...

        > After all, the 360 was just another x86 PC-in-a-box.

        Um, no. The 360 has a PowerPC CPU. It's the original Xbox (the hueg black and green one) was another x86 PC-in-a-box. And for some reason it's trivial to emulate a x86 processor on a Power CPU, but not the other way round (PearPC has been around for years and it's still barely usable).

      3. bean520

        Re: I genuinely do not understand...

        "...the 360 was just another x86 PC-in-a-box."

        Umm no it wasnt. It was based on the PPC architecture, like pre-intel Macs. PPC to x86 translation is computationally expensive and the gap between generations just isnt that big, nor do the consoles have chips from the previous console inside them (ala PS2, Wii, GBA)

    11. Amorous Cowherder
      Facepalm

      Re: I genuinely do not understand...

      Same sort who think kicking down your fences on a Friday night is funny? 'Cos they're fucking stupid kids who need to grow up a bit!

      1. GBE

        Re: I genuinely do not understand...

        > Same sort who think kicking down your fences on a Friday night is funny?

        It's more like somebody told you to to kick down your own fences and you went ahead and did it even though

        1) you should have known better than to build a fence that will fall over when given a kick.

        2) you should have been bright enough to avoid being talked into doing something so stupid.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I genuinely do not understand...

        "Same sort who think kicking down your fences on a Friday night is funny? 'Cos they're fucking stupid kids who need to grow up a bit!"

        -- not exactly a good comparison. A better comparison would be to have someone hand you instructions on how to kick your OWN fence down while telling you that you'll find a pot of gold underneath it. Then stand by laughing their ass off at how fucking stupid you are when you do it. Now that is funny.

    12. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: I genuinely do not understand...

      If you don't understand I guess you have never played a practical joke on anyone where the intent is to derive pleasure in someone else's gullibility, naivety or greed, and their suffering through that.

      It's the joy of seeing people put aside critical thinking to reveal they aren't as smart as they would like to think they are. Satisfaction and smug superiority that we would not have fallen for it ourselves.

      Maybe we shouldn't derive pleasure from that but it seems most of us do. Few of us like to be victims but most times it's our own fault when we are; raging against those who invited us to become victims doesn't alter that fact.

      It can be a hard lesson being reminded we should never simply believe what people tell us.

    13. RyokuMas
      Paris Hilton

      Re: I genuinely do not understand...

      Because they have an axe to grind?

      ... you know, like there are those on here who will automatically post an negative and/or derogatory comment about something, just because of who makes it.

    14. HippyFreetard

      Re: I genuinely do not understand...

      Neither do I.

      I also don't know how those Microsoft snotrags have been getting away with it for 30 years...

    15. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I genuinely do not understand...

      Simply because it's funny. 'nuff said.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Amusing, but not if you own one and have done this.

    April 1st is such a long way off.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @AC 08:32

      Would you be equally amused if you'd saved your money to buy your kid(s) one of these and in thinking they could play older games they tried it?

      If you find such nastiness entertaining then I suggest you're no better than the people putting out the info in the first place. Indeed, there are a lot of pricks out there but between you and them? You make up the whole fucking cactus.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @AC 09:05

        Oooh, guess who just tried to enable backwards compatibility on his xbone....

        I don't think the people behind this are particularly bad. To those caught out it's a very valuable life lesson and, at the end of the day, it's only a console....

        1. DavCrav

          Re: @AC 09:05

          "I don't think the people behind this are particularly bad. To those caught out it's a very valuable life lesson and, at the end of the day, it's only a console...."

          Is the life leson "Don't trust people because they are twats"?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @AC 08:32

        Would you be equally amused if you'd saved your money to buy your kid(s) one of these and in thinking they could play older games they tried it?

        kin ell! are you letting your kids read the boards on 4chan? that's top parenting there, i bet you also let them play the 18+ video games and then complain that there's too much violence in them and they shouldn't be allowed to be sold?

        somebody needs to place a call to child services for their own good, but i suspect the damage is already done. you sick, sick individual! i bet you're the one buying them new boxes of sharpies all the time too aren't you?

        1. S4qFBxkFFg
          Thumb Up

          Re: @AC 08:32

          "...buying them new boxes of sharpies all the time..."

          Nicely done sir.

        2. Vociferous

          Re: @AC 08:32

          > are you letting your kids read the boards on 4chan?

          You say that as if there was something wrong with letting your small kids read a shock-porn site brimming with CP, hentai, and gore.

          Once upon a time goatse was considered shocking. Then Somethingawful kicked out the pedos and weeabos, and they formed 4Chan. The internet never looked back.

      3. Fibbles

        Re: @AC 08:32

        I'll admit I laughed. It's actually quite a light hearted joke by /b/ standards. Consider that they used to create infographics that would supposedly teach kids how to grow their own amazing looking crystals using nothing more than everyday cleaning products but would in reality just create a cloud of poisonous gas.

  3. hplasm
    Happy

    o Dear.

    That is all.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Microsoft Fail

    Microsoft will have to cover the cost of fixing said bricked Xbox's as owners can claim a child was messing about with the controller and they happened to hit the sequence shown.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Microsoft Fail

      They won't. You can't accidentally enter the code, and there is a warning.

      Covered. Nice try,

    2. David Barrett

      Re: Microsoft Fail

      "Microsoft will have to cover the cost of fixing said bricked Xbox's as owners can claim a child was messing about with the controller and they happened to hit the sequence shown."

      Probably not as its not just a key combination that was mentioned, there was a URL that had to be entered into a text field as well.

      I doubt that you will get away with "my 3 year old was mashing the keys, somehow got to the xbox settings menu pressed Left Left Up Down Right Shoulder Left Shoulder A B X Y then typed in 'dev.microsoft.com' into the text box and then pressed start to save the whole thing" *

      * This isnt the actual key sequence or URL, I only saw the instructions briefly and ignored them.

  5. Yet Another Commentard

    and this children...

    Is why taking advice from somewhere random on the internet is seldom a Good Idea™.

    (and yes, I am aware of the irony of giving advice randomly on the internet to decry the use of random advice from the internet).

    1. dogged

      Lawyers paradox

      The maxim "everyone on the internet is wrong" is not too far out.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Trollface

        Re: Lawyers paradox

        EPIC STD!

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Windows

    OK,

    M$ stupidly left the ability to brick a console in an easily accessable "Un"hidden menu.

    M$ stupidly refused to make it play old gen 360games. Way to alienate customers! After all, the 360 and the One are PC's at their heart. Worse is that it isnt that much more powerful than the 360 and is par to a mid range gaming PC.

    Stupid stupid stupid. On both counts.

    And i'm an M$ lover!!!!

    1. joeldillon

      Re: OK,

      The Xbox 360 has a PowerPC CPU; at its 'heart' it is completely different from modern PCs. The One has an x86. Emulating one CPU on another at all efficiently is Not Easy, especially for something performance sensitive like games. It's not surprising Microsoft didn't try.

    2. Khaptain Silver badge

      Re: OK,

      When you read the procedure it does not seem very possible to "accidently" enable this option especially step 5.

      I can't blame MS for this one...

      My car also has a semi-hidden menu that I learned about from a web forum BUT I choose to read up on the items before changing any of them. Blindly following theses kinds of procedures is often a recipe for disaster.

    3. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

      Re: OK, @cornz 1

      Except that the 360 does not use x86 compatible processors, so is not strictly a PC in the "IBM Compatible" PC manner.

      In order to run Xbox 360 games, they would have had to include some processor emulation or run-time translation of the instructions. This is what Transmeta did for their Crusoe processors, and we can see how successful that was.

  7. El_Fev

    How does it brick the console though?

    Surely it will just refuse to run the code? why does it brick the console when it finds something it doesn't understand? is this a security hack to stop ripped games from ever being run?

    Surely it should just default back to its original condition ?

    1. DrXym

      Re: How does it brick the console though?

      It puts the device into an boot cycle and there is no way to recover from it. Anyway MS will have to produce a firmware patch lickety split because people will start returning bricked consoles by the bus load.

      1. Amorous Cowherder
        Facepalm

        Re: How does it brick the console though?

        "people will start returning bricked consoles by the bus load."

        Exactly! MS might think they're being "parent-like", wagging their finger at the people daft enough to try this, but this could well backfire as more people bring them back to retail outlets and those outlets all get on the phone to MS. Bang goes the Xmas sales for MS, the retail outlets get pissed off with MS during the busiest time of the year. Next time MS bring something out, those outlets won't buy as much stock.

        MS once again turning a shot to the foot into a practised art-form!

    2. wowfood

      Re: How does it brick the console though?

      More than likely it's a classic MS move. No dev ID needed to be input to put it into dev mode, but a dev id is needed to do anything after putting it in dev mode, including a factory reset. So not bricked, more like password protected with no idea what the password is.

  8. Semaj
    Trollface

    Lol

    Unfortunate and very mean, but quite funny.

    This really is what 4chan [used to be] all about. Not getting people to kill themselves or the lame moral crusades.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It may be harsh...

    ...but I have no sympathy for people who fall for this stuff.

    Same with those who fall for those Nigerian Prince scams.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It may be harsh...

      Wait... You're saying that the nigerian prince who emailed me was a scammer?

      But... I gave him my account details... He's meant to be transferring the money on friday.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: It may be harsh...

        I got the money last thursday...

      2. hplasm
        Happy

        Re:Re: It may be harsh...

        Send him a bricked XBone.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @AC

      "...but I have no sympathy for people who fall for this stuff."

      This was my first reaction as well, however that ignores one very important detail: not everyone who ran into this mess did so by following the instructions on 4chan. What if someone found this on Google (or any other web source) and passed it on? Maybe even with the warning "I have no idea if it'll work!".

      The person who would end up trying this wouldn't know it came from 4Chan but from someone he/she might actually trust.

      Heck; they might even think "what's the worst that can happen? You reset the device and all is well again".

      And that is exactly where things gone wrong.

      With my PS3 I can force it to reset itself after which it will check it's USB slots for a mass storage device and then load and apply the firmware present. This is the roughly the same procedure which you need to apply when you're replacing your harddisk.

      So if the "old" and "inferior" PS3 can do something so trivial, why can't this "superior next-gen" console?

      The blame lies with Microsoft; they failed to supply a back door to get people out of this mess. How hard would it be to insert a ROM which can wipe out the internal HD and then try to download the latest firmware from a specific Microsoft location and apply it?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    By 'deleted' I assume the thread was aged as threads (particularly popular ones) tend not to last much beyond a couple of hours on /b/ unless they've changed the software since I used around 2005 which I doubt.

    Remember to sage that shit.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Remember to sage that shit.

      Mmmmm, herbal crap! yum......

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Sage goes in all fields.

  11. Tromos

    Consumer protection

    Time the EU stepped in and made vendors warranties cover any non-destructive actions a user might perform. The manufacturers would soon be forced to provide a reset to factory settings facility.

    It just isn't reasonable that an expensive piece of equipment can be rendered useless by simply pressing a few buttons on it. Can you imagine having purchased an 80 inch OLED 4K television and it being consigned to the scrapheap because you shouldn't have changed channels in a 2 - 4 - 6 - 8 sequence?

    1. sabroni Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: 2 - 4 - 6 - 8

      never too late!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Consumer protection

      This kind of manufacturer fuck up really should be illegal. I had a Garmin GPS device which was bricked by a software update. Garmin told me it couldn't be reset, it wasn't their responsibility, and I would have to buy a new device. I bought a Tom-tom.

      1. Soruk

        Re: Consumer protection

        Similarly, my Echostar T101FTA Freeview box was bricked by an OTA update.

        Unlike Garmin's response, and despite the thing being way out of warranty, Echostar reflashed it (and upgraded it to the T101FTA+ firmware) for just the cost of me posting it to them - they paid the return postage.

    3. David Webb

      Re: Consumer protection

      I agree with you on principle, but not in this case. In this case you can't lock it just by pushing buttons. You have to enter the hidden menu (which could be done on accident) then enable Dev tools "Ohh, what does this do?" seems reasonable. Then you get stuck "what goes in here?" so search the internet to try to find out, the internet says "Enables Xbox compatibility" on 1 site and "HOAX!" on every other, you ignore the hoax and follow the instructions.

      Should MS now be liable because the end user followed a procedure on the internet? It's like an MMO being liable for a player getting PK'd and losing all their gear because someone said "OMG, you can kill that player quickly by pressing Alt+F4 5 times quickly...."

    4. Grikath
      FAIL

      Re: Consumer protection

      How would that work?

      The way to brick an Xbox in this way requires a whopping three sequences of user input, not just some random buttonmashing. It's relatively easy to do , but only if you ignore the fact that the advice comes from 4Chan (which is a Red Flag in and of itself...).

      You cannot legislate against greed and stupidity.....

      In it's kind it is not dissimilar to the very old "joke" that urged people to overclock their PC's by flipping the voltage selector on the PSU... ( And yes... people actually did this..with predictable results...)

    5. Alan W. Rateliff, II

      Re: Consumer protection

      This is absolutely the wrong way to handle it. Instead of going bawling to Daddy Government, you should be indignant enough to sue the company. There are plenty of hungry lawyers out there who would take a case like this on contingency, especially if there is a chance for it to go class-action.

      The government invariably screws things up when they get involved with all kinds of unintended consequences of a now suddenly broad legislation attempting to cover all cases, or the intended consequences of lobbying from those who want their bit cast in or given exemption.

      Let the people start their own narrowly-tailored case and self-regulate. If they refuse to take care of themselves then, frankly, they deserve what they get. Once a case is decided, given the fear of litigation is not enough to dissuade future transgressions, it is easy enough to translate into an equally-tailored industry regulation by people who are actually involved, rather than those who look down their noses at everyone, lacking the experience of those being scrutinized, passing laws with reckless abandon leaving others to clean up and suffer the mess.

  12. Matthew 17

    Rotten trick however...

    When you're teaching technophobes or old people how to use a computer, the first thing you demonstrate to them is that no matter what you type or press you can't actually break your computer, if you do something wrong then computer will simply say 'no' but no harm done.

    However in this instance it's not correct, it would be easy enough for anyone having a bit of a button bash to access this menu and cause the problem. MS should release a fix for this.

    1. Nelbert Noggins

      Re: Rotten trick however...

      If by computer you mean the hardware then I agree it's very difficult to break via random software actions, but it's not that hard to make the system unbootable and in need of a software rebuild.

      On a computer with no install/restore disc or recovery partition then a broken computer is quite easy. It's also quite easy to get stuck in a reboot loop with the wrong driver force installed. So the idea that you can't break a computer by randomly pressing... well... we'll have to agree to disagree.

      As for the XB1... it's quite a specific sequence of events that must be performed from the system menu, and I bet the hardware isn't broken, but the software is no longer bootable and you have no recovery media/restore partition... sounds a lot like a computer, although I put forward breaking the XB1 software by random button bashing without instructions is harder than breaking a computer OS.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Here's some more key presses for you to try...

    At the end of the sequence, your bank balance will be transferred into my bank account...AMAZING!

    1. Sorry, "Sorry that handle is already taken" is already taken.

      Re: Here's some more key presses for you to try...

      Fabulous!!

      Enjoy my overdraft. :-D

  14. Parax

    Brewing a self inflicted shitstorm?

    Microsoft have nothing to worry about, their own research showed that people don't want backward compatibility, hence why its not included.

    Of course if MS are just restricting backward compatibility to sell more games and there are enough non to tech savvy folks out there who do want it, enough to try this 'fix' ... then MS have a shit storm on their hands...

    Question is, is it deservedly so?

    Bit stupid to include an auto brick key sequence though...

    1. NumptyScrub

      Re: Brewing a self inflicted shitstorm?

      quote: "Bit stupid to include an auto brick key sequence though..."

      I know a few operating systems that allow the user to make similarly stupid mistakes, e.g.

      rm -rf /

      format C: /y

      I even recall finding the information of the (POKEable) memory addresses to disable the Esc and Break keys on a Beeb Model B, prior to creating and running your standard "10 print 'contentious statement' 20 GOTO 10" type program, although that's not so much a bricking as a caning IIRC ^^;

      I'd also be surprised if the console is completely irrecoverable, I think it more likely that MS don't want to hand install/recovery discs out to people so they can subsequently try to install XBox One OS (XBOOS) on a normal x86 PC (and therefore find out how much common codebase there is between XBOOS and Win8). They are going to want a return to base for that kind of fix ;)

      1. Stephen Hurd

        Re: Brewing a self inflicted shitstorm?

        Those commands don't brick the computer.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Normally I'm all for challenging thickies...

    ...and I think that the only way you tackle said gullibility is to make a (reasonable) point.

    However, it's disingenuous and a bit smug when it affects an expensive purchase like this. The big difference with the iPhone 'waterproof' gag was that you would have to be shatteringly, defiantly thick to believe a software update could change the physical properties of your phone. Not falling for that conceit requires no tech knowledge - it's basic critical thinking and common sense. For example, in 2006 I once watched a forum debate in which a disgusted Macbook user was demanding Apple release a software patch to prevent yellowing of the wrist-rest area. You're never going to change that sort of person.

    In this case though, they knew Joe Public wouldn't feel a need to research this and would just go ahead and do it - in exactly the same way they retweet urban legends or re-share them on Facebook or whatever, without checking their facts. Do now, think later - it's the social media disease of our time.

    I think really we should think about who this gag was meant to attack - dumb consumers, or Microsoft (surely now receiving a lot of support calls about this). Maybe both. Microsoft have surprised me in leaving a logic flaw like this that can be so easily entered into. Hence, it seems targeted at MS but it's the (uninformed) customer that will pay unless MS acquiesces and admits a weakness.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Xbone drools and PS4 rules!

    1. DiViDeD

      School holidays already?

  17. Mr Shouty

    If true, and it does actually brick Xbones, then all I can say is.. "duhhhh srsly wtf". This is awesome. And if the info came from 4chan.. well.. this is just natural selection at work.

    Anyone who actually bothered reading up on the nextgen consoles would know damn well that they are not backwards-compatible, MS/Sony have no intention of ever making them so (perhaps the different architecture has something to do with this, no?) - perhaps you shouldn't have traded in your 360 then, eh bellends? Oh noes, you can't play with your dog on call of dooooty? Can't watch tv tv tv sports tv tv any more? Boo-bloody-hoo.

    But then most people who have actually managed to brick their beloved Xbone will find out that not everything you read on the internet is actually correct. But maybe that's cos I'm a cynical bastard.. and have a ps4 on order.

  18. Crisp

    But the people on 4chan are always so nice!

    They are some of the most kind and honest people I've seen on the internet.

    Why The Register of all publications would try and besmirch the good name of this wholesome family friendly site is beyond me.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: But the people on 4chan are always so nice!

      Absolutely!

      A couple of years ago I had them participating in a nice wholesome game of Mornington Crescent.

      Best comment in it:

      WAIT WAIT WAIT!

      I thought 4Chan was a NewYork Website for Pedos, Sicko and various malcontents.

      But apparently, we're all Radio 4 listeners from London.

      WTF!!!!!

      ..... yes, successfully trolled the trollers.

  19. seansaysthis

    Every story i read about the Xbox one makes it less appealing. I don't know why but I just assumed that the old xbox games would play on the new xbox . This seems to be the standard on other consoles and makes sense as theres a considerable investment in games from the previous generation of console. The ps4 and Wii u play the previous generation console games without any fiddling about.

    1. Nelbert Noggins

      PS4 backward compatible with previous gens? Hahahahaha

      Not at the moment according to Sony, and disc based compatibility isn't currently on the cards... from their own PS4 FAQ:

      PlayStation®4 does not have backwards compatibility to play disc-based PS1, PS2, or PS3 games, but we will deliver a new cloud-based gaming service that PlayStation fans can enjoy.

      I wouldn't hold my breath for delivery of that.

      As for why remove it? We already know the answer to that with the PS3 and 360. So they can charge you again to have a previous gen "retro" version when it is released via PSN/XBL.

      Sony started to throw BC out with the PS3. Even my original PS3 only had partial compatibility with games. I had PS2 games that just wouldn't run. So it looks like the XB1 has taken the lead from Sony as far as BC is concerned.

      Currently I have no desire to replace my 360 or PS3 or preference for either company. Now I have a gaming capable PC plugged into the TV for games and XBMC the consoles are getting no use.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Does the XBone have a "system32"? Deleting that on regular windows does wonders for performance.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Disgusting

    I find it absolutely disgusting that people propagate this kind of false information in order to lure innocent consumers into ruining their purchases.

    Everyone knows the only true way to run 360 games on the Xbox One is to delete the system32 folder.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "To be clear there is no way to make your Xbox One backwards compatible"

    Failing to answer the only question which matters... WHY?

    The idea that they couldn't do it is nonsense. No-one made them choose a weird processor. And they clearly have the resources to make it work if they wanted to.

    Backwards compatibility is upgrade lube. Both Sony and MS want to do you dry.

    1. Mr Shouty

      The reason? It's because x86_64 != PowerPC.

    2. MJI Silver badge

      Power PC <> weird, X86 <> weird, X86 <> Power PC

      Now to other side

      Power PC <> weird, Cell = weird

      The Cell was a bit of a beast and I cannot see how you could emulate a processor in the same ball park of performance as your new one. Even if the GPU side is about 10x more powerful.

      Yes I don't think the CPU side is that much more powerful on either side but the GPU is massively more powerful.

      Remember that the 360 was traditional GPU and CPU with both of similar performance. And the PS3 had a CPU a lot more powerful with a fast but weak GPU, but backed it up with a fast bus and the ability to off load GPU tasks to the CPU.

      So neither will PS4 or XB1 be able to support their predecessors games as is.

      But expect to see rewrites, but don't expect me to buy them

  23. gcla72
    Coat

    Ha, and might I add, ha

    Off to play my PS3.

    Micro$haft: It's all about the lock-in.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    One of my favorites...

    ...of all times was to warn people:

    "To get invincibility / infinite turbo/ nitro / infinite lives / unlimited ammo / unlimited mana / quad damage just hit Alt-F4 and all your prayers will be answered."

    It worked for a surprisingly long time.

    1. PC Paul

      Re: One of my favorites...

      I saw an IRC transcript on bash.org about that - someone fell for it, then came back and complained. In a masterpiece of trollage, they convinced him he must have hit Alt-F5 by mistake, and he should be sure to hit Alt-F4 this time... which he duly did. Again.

      Nearly as good as the 'hunter2' one.

    2. Kevin 6

      Re: One of my favorites...

      Used to use that one on WOW when in the Battlegrounds to clear the scrubs

      Its scary how many people fell for it day in and day out

  25. dave 93

    Warranty should cover it

    Do the manuals warn you not to try messing with the settings?

    I am sure MS can repair them - it's only software, right?

  26. Stretch

    lulz

    I for one sent the "shiteOS makes your phone waterproof" to all the fanbois i could.

  27. channel extended
    Devil

    Oh What Fun!!

    For those that remember.

    UP The Jolly Roger!!

  28. Sean Kennedy

    Another factor

    Another factor that helped propagate this is MS's past shady behavior. I have no problem believing, for instance, that they would include legacy support but have disabled it in order to generate future revenue.

    It's the unfortunate truth.

  29. Bladeforce

    Wow, Microsoft...

    made it easy for people to brick their consoles. What a pathetic system that is

  30. Furbian

    Typical Microsoft...

    For quite some time, getting our PS3 out of HDMI mode meant just pressing 'on' for a few seconds that made its display output reset to default, quite important when you took it to a friend's and that didn't have a 1080p display.

    The Xbox 360? If you forgot to change it before taking it, you had to look up the sequence required to change the display type, i.e. the d-pad actions required to access the systems menu and change the display. Don't know if they ever introduced a display fall-back, it was still needed as recently as last year :-

    power the console on using the guide button on a controller and wait for a minute

    press up on the dpad

    press right 6 times

    press down once

    press A 3 times

    press down 4 times

    press A twice to enable display discovery

  31. 2Fat2Bald

    There ought to be a way

    My view is this; Microsoft ought to repair/replace the damaged consoles or - at the very least - provide a way to. True it's not "their fault", but it won't cost them them to make it right and really i'd expect there to be some way to rescue a situation such as this. It may be as simple as altering some settings on the accounts of the people the Xboxes are trying to contact.

    Of course. What you really want is a recovery partition on the xbox that can be used to restore it to factory defaults if you (for example) power it on whilst holding down the power button (or whatever).

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