Microsoft Denies Link Between Kinect Use And Console Hardware Failure

Microsoft has refuted claims that use of the company's Kinect add-on can increase the chances of Xbox 360 hardware failure saying "any new instances of the three flashing red lights error are merely coincidental." The company was responding to a BBC report aired yesterday that featured owners of Microsoft's Xbox gaming console blaming Kinect for causing their consoles to fail. Ten-year old Adam Winnifrith told BBC Radio 4's You and Yours program that he had only used his Xbox with the Kinect a couple of times before it failed. "We plugged it in the day we got it but only played it a few times before we got the red lights. 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 BBC wrote that online gaming forums have been "buzzing with accounts of consoles showing the Red Ring of Death shortly after plugging in Kinects", a claim that Microsoft refuted. “There is no correlation between the three flashing red lights error and Kinect," said a Microsoft spokesperson. "Any new instances of the three flashing red lights error are merely coincidental." The infamous triple red light error, known colloquially amongst gamers as the "Red Ring of Death" was changed for the Xbox 360 Slim model, which instead features a glowing light that turns red when hardware issues pop up. The system has been dogged by hardware issues in recent years. At one point the Xbox 360's system failure rate climbed to as high as 23.7 percent.