Microsoft: ‘please do not blow vape smoke into your Xbox Series X’

Microsoft’s newest next-gen console, the Xbox Collection X (together with its smaller cousin, the Xbox Collection S), has arrived. And with it comes an entire bunch of web con artists attempting to meme folks into believing the brand new console is affected by horrible points.

You may, for instance, have seen clips handed across the web that showcased the Xbox Collection X actually smoking. The posts would have you ever imagine the blazing graphics of the Collection X are so demanding they’ll trigger an Xbox to catch hearth, however the actuality is way easier than Xbox consoles spontaneously bursting into flame. What truly seems to be taking place is that individuals are piping vape smoke into their new $500 consoles to provide off the looks of a hearth to troll followers on social media.

(Please word that it most likely isn’t an excellent thought to deliberately fill your brand-new console with water vapor, both, for what I’d hope are apparent causes.)

The meme has gone far sufficient that Microsoft itself has dignified it with a response:

The hoax is vaguely believable. Microsoft did should cope with the “Crimson Ring of Demise” challenge again within the Xbox 360 days over a decade and a half in the past, and the thought of devices catching hearth isn’t fully remarkable. For instance, Ring simply recalled a few of its video doorbells immediately, and there’s the notorious Samsung Galaxy Notice 7 debacle that noticed the complete product get recalled and faraway from the market because of issues over it catching hearth. However devices that are likely to ignite are usually battery-powered, with the hearth threat often coming from the onboard battery — not one thing that you simply’d have to fret about with an Xbox Collection X.

Equally, one other viral submit has been going round claiming the fan on the Xbox Collection X is so highly effective that the drafts it produces can droop a ping-pong ball in midair over the console, like some type of kinetic sculpture.

Right here, too, there’s some precise science that makes the chance believable. You may need even seen an identical demo in a center college science class, the place a hair dryer is used to levitate a ping-pong ball (because of some physics — particularly, Bernoulli’s precept, which describes the connection between velocity and strain of a fluid stream).

And whereas that science is actual (and does work with one thing that pushes air as quick as a hair dryer does), unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that the Xbox Collection X’s fan — sizable although it could be — truly places out the form of airspeed wanted to droop the ball.

Given how new the Xbox Collection X is, it’s potential there could be some points that crop up, similar to another new piece of {hardware}. There look like some remoted incidents of disc drive points, for instance. However as with every different viral hoax on the web, it’s at all times good to take stories of issues with a wholesome grain of salt, regardless of how compelling they sound.

Replace, 6:38 PM ET: Added Microsoft’s personal tweet on the matter.