Plaintiffs allege 360 console damages disks

A second class action lawsuit has been filed in a California court against Microsoft, alleging that the Xbox 360 console damages game disks.

Last week, a similar complaint was filed in the state of Florida.

The new complaint, filed by California residents Christine Moskowitz and Dan Wood, seeks at least USD 5 million in damages for all Xbox 360 owners affected by the alleged product defect. The pair alleges that the console damaged their game disks, and that Microsoft refused to replace or pay for the damaged games.

Microsoft recently acknowledged a hardware defect with the Xbox 360 and extended the warranty period by three years. However, the company did not acknowledge that their consoles were scratching game disks and rendering them unusable.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=26901

So much for the wave of Next Gen of all the different game machines. They have pretty much been a wave of disaster.

The 360 is the only console to have a sh**load of hardware issues.

Newest console I have is still a Gamecube.
I think me and my life savings will stay away from the "next gen" for now...

PS3 and Wii havent seen much disaster... other than lack of games at the moment. but with the hardware issues and now this, microcrap better get their act together.

Well I could do the same thing too, and sue microsoft. It depends on how they're scratching the cd. If they had the console laying flat on the floor and they decide to have the console lay on its side to become a tower, of course its gonna scratch the cd if they decide to do it while the machine is still running.

5 million dollars? Thats rediculous, its like that one case in the US where a lawyer is suing for over 25 million over a lost pair of pants at the dry cleaners...

Maybe if there are more games with more variety, things will improve at least for Wii.

source

I still have a 5-yr old Playstation 2 which I'm very happy with.

hahaha, only 5 million? Even if they win, that means all Xbox owners would get some pocket change (about 40% of that 5M will go to attorney's and the people who originally filed the class action). And really, 5 million is nothing to Microsoft. The suit is frivolous and honestly probably won't make it through the court system especially since they've extended the warantee.

The class action suit perma-temp contractors brought against MS was for 96 million. I got a tidy 17K out of that one... and it took 6 or so years to get through the courts, and another 3 years to distribute the payouts.

Don't hold your breath.

My 360 is the invincible one. I've left it on for 24 hours, didn't overheat. Have dropped it on the floor when it was running a game, the game and 360 are fine. It has also tipped over many of times. Mine is the God of 360s.

OMG, it's worse than I thought... the suit is for 5 million... the attorney's will take 40%, take another 10% for accounting fees from the escrow company who would hold the cash that's to be distributed, which means that leaves 2.5M for distribution to Xbox owners.

Ok, according to Chris Lewis, (an Xbox VP) over 10 million Xboxes have been sold world-wide. Assume that 2 million of those are in the USA. Do the math... Xbox owners would get a cute little check for about $1.25--you could go out and get a pack of gum! Yippy!!

This is a totally stupid class action suit.

...

Well heres another example of Western society's obsession with litigation. This if it actually makes it to the courts which I doubt will be an incredible waste of the courts time. The extended warranty should allow the case to be dismissed but as it is so easy for anyone to attempt to sue another, these frivilous cases will continue to plague our court systems.

The extended warrenty doesn't cover disks being damaged. 360 games are $60 so I'd be pissed too if I had a 360 and it screwed one up.

Even if it went up to 100,000,000 ... that would mean that everyone would get a whopping $23.00 or so. Gimmee a break. They're not going to win a hundred million dollars in damages. It's not going to happen.

The most anyone could expect to get, under the best circumstances and outcome is maybe 2 or 3 bucks.

Now the class action suit I was involved in with Microsoft netted me a very nice award. However, even that suit was a little bit suspect in my opinion (that's another story). I worked for years at MS as a contractor -- meaning I worked for another company, but at MS. During the course of those years, MS kept us working for them for 3 or 4 or up to 10 years for some folks non-stop. We didn't receive all the hot MS benefits (and stock options), BUT we were paid weekly more than most MS employees--hourly I made almost twice what my boss did. The reason the class action was won was because MS violated the IRS rules that say contractors can't work more than 320 days without taking a 100 day break from the contract.

So, the suit was won (it took almost a total of 9 years with all the appeals and delays), and 8000 of us who were affected split roughly 47,000,000 bucks based on a really really complex formula. The award was for 96M but the lawyers, accountants and named complaintants took an enormous chuck.

The above is the kind of thing class action suits were designed for. Not for scratched DVD's--that's what extended warantees are for (which MS has already agreed to), and an extended warantee will get you a WHOLE lot more than some pittance class action--especially when it involves some 2-3 million systems.

The litigious nature of this country is so out of control.

Microsofts warrenty on the 360:

COVERAGE: This Service Contract covers the repair or replacement of all functional parts of, and all labor necessary to maintain, your Microsoft Xbox 360 Entertainment and Video Game System console (“Xbox 360 console”) and your Microsoft Xbox 360 controller originally included with your Xbox console (“Xbox 360 wired controller or xbox 360 wireless controller”), including any shipping expenses necessary to complete the repair of your Xbox 360 console or Xbox 360 controller. This Service Contract only covers purchases of the Xbox 360 console and Xbox 360 controller sold in Australia. Subject to the exclusions, exceptions, and conditions set forth herein, Microsoft will cause to be furnished labor and/or genuine manufacturer replacement parts as may be necessary to maintain your Xbox 360 console or Xbox 360 controller in substantial conformance with the Xbox 360 User’s Instruction Manual you received with your Xbox 360 console, during the term of this Service Contract, provided such service is necessitated as a result of product failure during normal usage.

Where does it say anywhere in there that damaged disks will be replaced or you'll be refunded? As I already said 360 games cost $60 which isn't cheap. Basically they'll fix the console but you're out the money you spent on the game(s).

Well, if your CD is all scratched up, you're probably out of luck. Most of the games aren't made by Microsoft so technically they can't replace them.

About the only thing MS could do (if they were more generous than any other company ever faced with a similar problem) would be to offer you a voucher for a new game, but it would have to be a MS developed/produced game. That's just business. It sucks, but that's how it goes.

Consequently, this isn't just Microsoft that would do this. If my HP laptop DVD player scratched my WoW CD, HP wouldn't replace WoW, they'd offer to fix my DVD player for free.

Or, if you bought a new set of tires for your car and one blew out 2 weeks after you bought the tires Goodyear would replace the tires, but they're not going to fix your bent up rims.

WoW a fellow WoW player huh what server you play on?

And wouldn't you expect them to get sued if they kept selling a defective product that caused damage to other things?

Naw, I don't play games (outside of occasionally playing solitare or bejeweled on MSN) I just used WoW as an example.



No, I wouldn't. I'd expect them to fix the hardware and make it very easy for me to get it fixed. If it was a very widespread problem, I might expect them to offer me a certificate of replacement for the software, maybe... maybe. For example, HP has an OEM license for Word Perfect, if my copy of Office was destroyed, I might expect HP to offer me the OEM Word Perfect, but not necessarily Office. When you understand how these industries work, and why they work the way they do, it makes it a lot easier to see how and why they resolve these issues the way they do. The solutoins might not be acceptable to you from your point of view, but when you realize how some of these companies hands are tied, it makes it a little easier to see and understand, it still might not seem fair, but it's understandable.

So ya, i think clas action suits for this kind of thing only hurts the consumer. They don't get enough back to make a difference in what they lost and the cash payout for the company is trivial. The company actually WINS in these things, except in a few rare cases like the one I outlined a few pages back. No, if you want to "stick it to hte company" USE your warantee.

So you're peferctly ok with a company knowingly selling a defective product because they offer to fix it if it ****s something else up? Wow...

Sure they would "repair" the console but they are using the exact same parts that caused the problem to begin with. I don't really see how anything is getting done there.

I think the 360 is going to go down as the most unreliable console released so far.