Xbox 360 Saves the Day during Home Invasion

by Joshua Gulick — Saturday, December 15, 2012, 10:30 AM EDT

The next time your spouse says video games are a waste of time, you can point out that a home invasion victim recently used his Xbox 360 to call for help. If that’s not a reason to rush out and buy a console (or three), I don’t know what is.

An Xbox 360 Headset

In a pinch? Your headset may be the fastest way to call for help.

According to reports, 22-year-old Derick Shaffer was playing video games in his Pittsburgh, PA home when a masked gunman broke into his home. The gunman forced Shaffer to reveal the locations of valuables in the home and then took off in Shaffer’s car, leaving Shaffer bound with duct tape. Apparently, an Xbox wasn’t on the gunman’s Christmas list, which is good news for Shaffer – he was able to use his Xbox Live headset to alert a friend to his situation. The friend called 911 and police arrived to free Shaffer, but the suspect remains at large.

Tags: Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Home Invasion

Joshua Gulick

Josh cut his teeth (and hands) on his first PC upgrade in 2000 and was instantly hooked on all things tech. He took a degree in English and tech writing with him to Computer Power User Magazine and spent years reviewing high-end workstations and gaming systems, processors, motherboards, memory and video cards. His enthusiasm for PC hardware also made him a natural fit for covering the burgeoning modding community, and he wrote CPU’s “Mad Reader Mod” cover stories from the series’ inception until becoming the publication editor for Smart Computing Magazine. A few years ago, he returned to his first love, reviewing smoking-hot PCs and components, for HotHardware. When he’s not agonizing over benchmark scores, Josh is either running (very slowly) or spending time with family.