A few words on why you should never, ever buy a $10,000 gold-plated Xbox One
Taking a page out of the Two Chainz guide to blinging the shit out of your shit, it seems world-famous London department store, Harrod's has begun to target financially misadvised rappers, oil oligarchs, and future Mega-Millions Jackpot winners with a special edition of Microsoft's next generation console. Yes, the inevitable has come to pass. Forget about the Xbox One Day One edition's chromed-out controller D-pad and black cardboard box; that special edition can't hold a candle to the $10,000 gold plated Xbox One offered by the UK luxury department store. Man, just imagine having that glistening console sitting in your living room. Actually, wait. No. Don't imagine that because owning one of these is probably the worst idea ever.
I own an Xbox One (Day One, WHAT!), and I'm totally loving it. Playing games, watching Netflix, and browsing with the Kinect is totally enjoyable. But you know what I didn't enjoy? Lugging that beast around in any way, shape, or form. The XBOne is one of the biggest, heaviest, and awkward to carry consoles to ever exist (not like the Gamecube and its handy carrying handle). So, what's it going to be like with shiny sheets of one of the heaviest metals on the periodic table grafted to the sides? I can just imagine that sucker busting through my glass-shelved entertainment center or at the very least, pinching my fingers real bad during setup.
Then there's the fact that this early in the console's production cycle, the gold plated system is one of the first Xbox Ones to get off the factory line. And you know what that means. Yeah, you're probably going to have some problems with it. For instance, there have been several reports of disc drives eating game discs, which would result in you having to fix the Xbox One disc drive by banging on the bottom. If this situation were to happen to you, are you really going to be slamming your fist on a $10,000 console? Do you think your pathetic fist-slammings could actually get past that kind of armor? And good luck getting any technical support from Microsoft. Dipping your Xbox One in gold definitely isn't covered in the warranty.
But forget the mechanical problems with the disc drives, another issue is gold is one of the most conductive materials on earth. So, with all that heat that the Xbox would be pushing out, I'm pretty sure some of that thermal energy will be coming through that metal. But, you know, that could really be a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand, the radiating heat can have your One working as both an entertainment center and space heater. On the other, the gold will probably melt right off the console, scald nearby children, or just incinerate the CPU.
Most importantly, despite all of the other (highly) probable console catastrophes that could happen, and the fact that you're gold Xbox would probably act as the conduit through which your can-afford-a-$10,000-console bank account would get hacked, you may find an even more grave fate befall you. And that is: having a gold plated Xbox One sitting in your living room really just makes you look like a douche.
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Many years ago, Lorenzo Veloria was a Senior Editor here at GamesRadar+ helping to shape content strategy. Since then, Lorenzo has shifted his attention to Future Plc's broader video game portfolio, working as a Senior Brand Marketing Manager to oversee the development of advertising pitches and marketing strategies for the department. He might not have all that much time to write about games anymore, but he's still focused on making sure the latest and greatest end up in front of your eyes one way or another.