Kinect + old Xbox 360 = red rings of death

If you have an Xbox 360 that was made before the year 2010, be careful before you go out to buy a Kinect and a whole bunch of games. You know what you’ll get for those hundreds of dollars? A big headache.

DigitalSpy.com put together a bunch of comments found on the official Xbox forums, which have been lighting up with users claiming that their older console dies as a result of the Kinect – some of them within minutes of plugging in the camera. It’s been even more prevalent of a problem after countless Xbox 360 users got a Kinect for Christmas.

A UK-based forum poster lamented, “At the weekend I spent £130 on a Kinect and a further £30 on Dance Central, so when I got home I excitedly plugged it into my Xbox… However within 5 minutes it froze up and when I turned it on again it had the dreaded 3 red rings showing.”

An angry father posted about how his holiday gift went horribly wrong: “This thing had been fine all these years. I got my kids Kinect for Christmas and shortly after plugging it in… [Red Ring of Death]!!”

Most of these older systems are out of warranty, even with Microsoft’s multi million-dollar extension, and are being denied fixes. Xbox representatives are reportedly telling affected users that the problem is with the system, not the Kinect, so any repaid would need to be paid for. Microsoft charges around $100 to fix a broken Xbox 360 that’s out of warranty.

There have been no such reported problems with the Kinect and the newer version of the Xbox 360 system. [[Kinect]]