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If you like your Xbox Series X, don’t blow smoke up its arse

On Wednesday, there was rising tension amongst early adopters of the Xbox Series X as a video of it smoking like Thomas the Tank emerged on Reddit. Never fear, it was fake and the result of some pesky vapers. Truly, don’t try this at home.

If you’ve just received your Xbox Series X or are still waiting for yours, you’ll have likely looked on in horror when these rather terrifying images emerged of your impending console looking like it was about to ignite into a flaming ball of vengeance. However, the panic quickly settled and some sensible people uncovered the dark truth – vapegate.

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Here’s the initial toe-curlingly-concerning video, which has 2.5 million(!) views:

Some cautious and some less cautious headlines emerged before cooler heads prevailed and we saw the video debunked by outlets like The Verge and Eurogamer, with the help of diligent Twitter account XboxStudio:

So yes, it would appear any of these mischievous videos flying around suggesting your Xbox Series X could begin smoking like an outdoor BBQ are indeed caused by a vape.

Along with its fridge stunt (see our weekly What the Tech? column for more on that), Xbox has largely gone with the flow in the run up to the launch of the Series X but, this time, we appreciate them stepping in to set the record straight – putting it a bit more eloquently than we did at the beginning of this story: 

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A less frightening use of the Series X’s apparently handy ventilation set-up was in keeping a ping pong ball suspended in the air.

Surely this was another harmless bit of fun, right? Wrong, it’s another darned fib.

While it’s been a fun ride seeing the Xbox Series X launch descend into a special episode of Breaking the Magician’s Code: Magic’s Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed, we think that’s about enough. Don’t vape into your new next-gen console and don’t get people’s ping pong ball-related hopes up, honestly.

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