HardcoreModz
The Sun leads with a story that has no doubt caused headaches at
Microsoft.
With a headline of ‘Death by Xbox’, the paper has pushed to the fore the
tragic case of Chris Staniforth, a 20-year-old who died of
deep-vein-thrombosis (DVT).
The report directly links the DVT to Staniforth spending up to 12 hours
playing Xbox games – his father said he was “sucked in” to online
multiplayer for games like Halo.
DVT is the formation of a blood clot that develops often without
symptoms and is most commonly occurring in immobilised hospital patients
or regular smokers - but is also linked to long-haul flights and
travel, where it occurs due to lack of movement in transit.
The Sun throws in that “in recent years it has been increasingly been
seen among those who sit for long spells in front of computer screens”.
As tragic as this story is, that’s an odd claim to throw in when it can
occur in anyone immobilised or still for a long period of time. (And
let’s not forget an Xbox needs to be plugged into a TV, not a computer.)
Staniforth’s
father David said he is now launching a campaign to raise awareness of
DVT and video games – but added he isn’t levelling criticism at
Microsoft.
“Kids all over the country are playing these video games,” he told The
Sun. “They don’t realise it could kill them.
“I’m not for one minute blaming the manufacturer of Xbox. It isn’t their
fault that people use them for so long. But I want to highlight the
dangers that can arise.
“Playing on it for so long is what killed him – and I don’t want another
child to die.”
A statement from Microsoft said: “We recommend gamers take breaks to
exercise as well as make time for other pursuits.”
The report comes just a few days after The Sun published a report about
an asthmatic teenage girl who suffered “a heart attack while playing on
her Xbox”, and four months after it ran a widely-mocked report about how
the Nintendo 3DS poses a health-risk and made players ill or dizzy.
