XBox One owners warned: 'Backwards-compatibility prank' can brick your console

Owners of Microsoft's new Xbox One risk bricking their shiny new game consoles if they fall for an Internet prank offering to make their machines work with older games.

 

Larry Hryb, director of programming for Microsoft’s Xbox Live network, issued the warning in a post on his Twitter account this week:

 

 

A separate article on tech site T3.com said the prank had claimed users could make their Xbox One backwards-compatible with the older Xbox 360.

 

It said the prank appeared to have come out first on the 4chan Internet forum.

 

T3.com said that while the procedure is intended to unlock developer tools, someone without a developers account who tries this can "send the console into a inescapable start-up loop."

 

Also, it said the sequence "turns the Xbox One console into a machine that is capable of testing games," and there is no way to undo the sequence.

 

"It is unclear how many Xbox One owners have damaged their consoles in this way," T3.com said. — TJD, GMA News