Kinect Causing RRoD?

Like Sauron being driven out of Mirkwood only to rise in power again in Mordor, it looks like the dreaded Xbox 360 "Red Ring of Death" error hasn't been entirely defeated. According to a report from the BBC, some consumers are claiming that a new spate of RRoD errors are being caused when using Kinect with older 360 consoles.

"We plugged [Kinect] in the day we got it but only played it a few times before we got the red lights," said 10-year-old Adam Winnifrith to the BBC Radio 4's You and Yours program. "The next day when we tried it again we still had the red rings of death and haven't been able to use it since."

The report also points to complaints on the official Xbox forum, where others have blamed Kinect for causing their 360s to red ring. "I just got the Kinect for my xbox 360 (one of the original ones) with only 4 mg memory. I installed the update software that came with the system, went through the kinect calibrations and when I went to play the game [the] system froze. Tried this multiple times and got red ring of death (3 rings)," wrote one member in a thread. "Same thing happened to me. My non problematic 2008 360 pro got RROD after playing kinect 2-3 times (with light use)," wrote another.

Microsoft, however, has denied there's any link to new RRoD errors and use of Kinect, saying in a statement to the BBC that Kinect is "designed to work with every Xbox 360 sold to date." Furthermore, Microsoft insists that there is "no correlation between the three flashing red lights error and Kinect. Any new instances of the three flashing red lights error are merely coincidental."

Indeed, it's hard to say at this point whether there is in fact a causative link between Kinect and RRoD errors, as it is possible Kinect use at the time of the errors occurring could simply be a coincidence. And unless reports of the error increase to a point where Microsoft can no longer deny them (as was the case with the RRoD error in the first place), or unless some more scientific experimenting is done to prove Kinect use can cause an RRoD on an older console, any proof of a link between the two may remain elusive (because, in the end, there may not be one).

Original Article: http://www.gametab.com/news/3553800/