Video Games

Engadget writes and reports: “Chicago resident Robert Byers isn’t buying Microsoft’s claim that “only” 3% of the Xbox 360s that have been sold were faulty, so he’s filed a class action lawsuit against the corporation in an Illinois federal court calling for undisclosed damages, litigation expenses, and the replacement or recall of 360 consoles. The suit claims that Microsoft knowingly released a defective product in order to beat Sony (and presumably Nintendo) to market and gain an early foothold in the next-gen console “war.” As we’ve reported several times, users have been complaining that their new Xboxes crash during regular and online play, displaying various error messages or blanking the screen, and that many units have right toasty power bricks. We sure hope this all gets resolved soon, because we are still on hold waiting for customer service to troubleshoot our store-bought 360.”

It sounds like another frivolous lawsuit to me, and in no way a “class-action”. Defective Xboxes represent an incredibly small fraction of the total units sold (as it should be), and thus its unlikely that this is a fruitful lawsuit. At best, the prosecutors are looking at a restitution similar to that of the PS2 lawsuit (which was just settled): $25, a game, and any necessary repairs/replacements. And how long did the PS2 lawsuit take to get settled? Almost until the Xbox 360 came out…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 6th, 2005 at 7:42 am and is tagged with xbox 360s, class action lawsuit, litigation expenses, frivolous lawsuit, xbox 360, necessary repairs, engadget, robert byers, suit claims, next gen console war, defective product, foothold, restitution, bricks, error messages, replacements, prosecutors, consoles, several times, damages. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback.

10 Responses to 'Xbox 360 Legal Action'

1. 
   Lars Chizwick said:

   on December 18th, 2005 at 9:34 am

   Apparently Xbox 360 damages disks should you shift the unit while it’s on and the disk is inside. This is alarming.

2. 
   william c walls said:

   on January 8th, 2007 at 6:04 pm

   My xbox 360 also crashes during game play in car races cars fly off road into a blank tv screan.

3. 
   John Martoccio said:

   on January 13th, 2007 at 3:02 pm

   I also have a 360 (second one so far) that has failed. The first one purchased November 24th, and given to my son at Christmas had a failed in less than 48 hours of play. The replaced unit, has scratched a game (Gears of War). Microsoft claim that if the unit receives any vibration or has a loss of power, this can cause the unit to scratch disc’s. I explained that the unit was plugged directly into power of the home, and no movement of the console occurred. Microsoft refuses to replace the game disc or the console. This is clearly a defective product. I purchased an additional warranty from Circuit City ($80) which only covers a “ONE TIME REPLACEMENT”. This product is CLEARLY defective, and I wish to join this lawsuit.

4. 
   Justin Necheporek said:

   on January 20th, 2007 at 4:11 pm

   I just recently purchased an XBox for Christmas 2006 along with a brand new copy of Gears of War.Both were brand new factory sealed and within the first week of gameplay it would freeze up constantly.I treat my electronics like children so it’s the XBox not me.Anyone looking to buy a next-gen console should do thier homework before investing in this rip-off.

5. 
   Nolan Rizzo said:

   on January 25th, 2007 at 10:28 pm

   my 360 works fine

6. 
   jc said:

   on March 3rd, 2007 at 10:44 pm

   so does mine and its my firest one

7. 
   charles mccrea said:

   on March 4th, 2007 at 12:29 am

   i bought the xbox 360 and i have played it for well over 400 hours now and left it on for around 900 hours and nothing has happened

   same with everyone else that has a 360
   obviously people are lying about this
   the 360 works fine

8. 
   vbgod13 said:

   on March 31st, 2007 at 12:45 am

   Or you’re just ignorant, Charles. I’m 32 years old and I treated my 360 like gold, but it died while playing “The Godfather” - I go another one, and the same thing happened. It has nothing to do with the amount of time you play - it’s about what games you play, and what kind of toll they put on the system - some games use all three processors, some only use two -

   I don’t think people (myself included) would waste time lying about this - we’d much rather be playing our 360s than perpetrating falsehoods on the internet, ding dong.

9. 
   Tony Starks said:

   on December 6th, 2007 at 2:43 pm

   i had two xbox360’s. One burned out and the other one had the SAME problem. this sucks that they did it….but i don’t want to go to ps3 because i have nothing but xbox stuff in my house. its sucks so f’n bad

10. 
    Dave Charnow said:

    on March 28th, 2008 at 10:22 pm

    My Xbox 360 had the 3 blinking lights error.(ref#106099XXXX) They said they fixed it and shipped it back to me. When I opened the box I saw the letter saying sorry we replaced yor xbox with another unit and the serial number is changed. So now I had to notify my Independant extended warranty company of the new seriel number. Great. I get everything hooked up only to find out this xbox was originally sold overseasand has a minor flaw in it”Intermittant video loss which looks like static encroaching on the screen till eventually complete video loss. I was unhappy that I had to wait 3 weeks for getting my Xbox360 back from repairs but when this happened let’s just say I’M MAD AS HELL. So now I’m told (ref#106284XXXX) that I have to send this POS back and once again be without xbox for another 3 weeks does not cut it. I want my original Xbox repaired and returned to me or a brand new one in original sales box. I bought this machine because I liked it. I took care of my machine and it still got the flaw that all xbox 360s get that is why I bought a 3 year extended warranty. The machine in my possetion now was god knows whos and only god knows how it was abused.I am through talking to the call center in India.

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