Xbox owners tricked into destroying consoles Online trolls have convinced Xbox One owners to "brick" their brand new consoles with a set of instructions promising to unlock new features but actually sending the expensive devices into an endless loop of reboots which renders them useless. The prank (which we will not duplicate in detail here) involves just six steps, opening the Developer Console menu of the unit and changing vital settings before attempting to reboot. Unfortunately, these changes render the console completely inoperable. Reports this morning are that the effect is permanent, but Microsoft has not yet responded to queries. Nor has it said whether affected users will be able to have consoles repaired or replaced under warranty. One user who apparently followed the how-to wrote on 4chan, the site where the prank originated: "guys I did this, how do I turn it back, please it's my brothers [sic] console." Xbox team member Larry Hryb took to Twitter in an attempt to stop the prank from spreading further: "To be clear there is no way to make your Xbox One backwards compatible & performing steps to attempt this could make your console inoperable." The internet forum 4chan has a long history of similar pranks. In September a user on the site released a fake Apple advert claiming that a recent software update had made iPhones and iPads waterproof. It said that in the event of sensing water, the devices would flick a "smart switch" that would prevent any damage to circuitry. Many people tried out the new feature and were disappointed to find that their expensive devices were broken. Microsoft could not be reached for comment at the time of writing.