Microsoft Launches "seek And Destroy" Xbox

[Jimmy]

Microsoft's new gaming product, the long-awaited XBox hit European this week - with a couple of extra features. The device, often described as a "PlayStation-killer" turns out to have genuine destructive capabilities, although Bill Gates has said that these will not automatically be enabled.

Look out! It's bloody well armed!

The tactical weaponry was discovered by a group of electronics researchers in the West Midlands who bought an XBox from Japan and took it to pieces in the hope of discovering the secrets of its construction. What they discovered was a miniature grenade launcher, a flame-thrower, an onboard battle computer and 200 rounds of armour-piercing ammunition. Analysis of the battle computer's program revealed that it was designed to hunt and destroy other makes of gaming console.

"Death To Nintendo"
Confronted with the evidence (schematics, circuit diagrams and the smouldering remains of a GameBoy Color) Bill Gates refused to admit that the new device was a threat to the security or safety of any of its customers. "Microsoft has always helped customers to help us," he explained, taking time out from his Death To Nintendo themed paintballing weekend, "that's why Internet Explorer 6 can automatically send us error reports containing a list of every piece of non Microsoft software installed on your machine, your name, address and credit card details and the 100 porn sites you last visited. It's our way of being more responsive to our users. But this feature can be turned off any time the user wishes, and this usually takes less than nine reboots to accomplish. Likewise, the XBox can cleanly, safely and conveniently remove unwanted or inferior gaming devices from your home, saving you the trouble of disposing of them yourself, but only if this feature is deliberately activated."

"destructive power"
What Gates did not explain was that - according to Stephen Thair, one of the engineers who discovered the XBox's "killer feature" - Microsoft has given itself the ability to enable the destructive power of the machine remotely any time it wishes. "I wish I could tell you more," explained Thair, "but just as we began to examine the receiver, the machine unfurled a collapsible Kalashnikov rifle and fired off seventeen rounds into the wall behind my head. I think it was trying to protect itself. It was then that we decided it was too dangerous to continue and placed the device in a containment chamber."

"mechanical killers"
Thair has been travelling the country, urging shoppers not to purchase the lethal devices, but most consumers have interpreted his rantings as little more than a publicity stunt to drum up sales for the new device. "Really, it's perfectly safe," assured Gates, pushing the goggles back onto his nose and blasting a Microsoft employee disguised as a PlayStation with a volley of high-velocity permanent dye. "My kids have got one. There's nothing to worry about. This notion of a super-army of sleek, unstoppable mechanical killers, one in every home, ready to spring into murderous action on my merest whim is absolutely fantasy."

When we explained to Mr Gates that we had said nothing about any kind of murderous army, and that we were just concerned about the dangers of an XBox destroying Gameboys and Nintendos, we were shown the door by a caterpillar-track XBox armed with a a flame thrower and a cattle prod, and warned not to speak of this to anyone. The whereabouts of Stephen Thair are currently unknown.