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Class action lawsuit filed against Xbox 360
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 10th July 2007
If successful, the class action lawsuit could price a scratched Lionel Richie CD at $5 Million.
Interestingly though, the inevitable lawsuit doesn't have anything to do with high failure rates or the dreaded 'red ring of death' which has caused so many problems for technicians. Instead, the lawsuit is about scratched disks.
The lawsuit, reportedly filed by a resident of Florida, alleges that the plaintiffs;
"...have been damaged in that their game discs were destroyed by the Xbox 360 during reasonable, foreseeable, normal, and intended use. The Xbox 360 was negligently designed and manufactured in that the Console's laser disc reading assembly contacts and scratches the video game discs during normal and intended operation and use."
Sounds fair enough really.
The lawyers are apparently trying to claim about $5 million as a result of the damage, which is nothing to a company like Microsoft who has already pledged $1 billion to try and fix the problem of high failure rates in the Xbox 360. Of course, if the plaintiff is successful then the case could set a dangerous precedent if others are quick to make similar claims.
For those who can read large amounts of legalese without suffering from crippling boredom, Joystiq is currently hosting the relevant pages of legal documentation.
Had problems with scratched disks in your 360? Want to sit around the campfire and tell stories about haunted disk drives or swap tips on how to repair discs (we hear Brasso works well)? We do that kind of thing in the forums.
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Comments (31)Stats: 0.197 seconds
*Awaits for his Wii seing as the PS3's are overpriced i feel.
i would really like to hear the pooping noise, of heads coming out of buts, coming from Microsoft HQ.
A class-action is pretty different than a normal lawsuit, since it's regarding a widespread issue affecting a great number of people. You know, for a serious issue that you can't individually sue over. In any case, retailers would refuse to accept the disk under the assumption that you mishandled it so you'd be SOL.
forza 2 chokes to death on the intro screens because of either scratches or a dodgy drive. thankfully the game plays fine except for the odd occasions where the disc just stops spinning (because its having trouble reading) and the track goes all transparent. my GoW disc was ruined as well, but thankfully that happened pretty much the day i bought it and tesco took it back no questions asked
this happened a couple of times to my mate using his ps2... he changed it from flat to verticle twice, and twice it ruined games. obviously the 360s lazer causes more problems as not many people with ps2s complained, but i think its more a fault of moving the lazer in most cases than an actual dodgy lazer being used
Ms should suck it up and do a complete recall of all the 360's out their in circulation and replace them with well manufactured units that dont overheat crash and scratch disks.
otispunkmeyer: I get that problem with Forza 2 too, I think it's more of a problem with the game, since I rarely get it with any other game (apart from GoW but they fixed that it seems).
As much as I like the 360, whoever was responsible for letting the console out for sale needs a slap, it's a pretty shoddy design that ruins a perfectly good console.
You might say it's common sense to put it horizontal, but to many people it's not, and since they designed the console to go in a vertical position, it should be able to run properly in a vertical position, that's still grounds for a class action lawsuit.
simple, easy and cheap, Microsoft take note!!!!!
-CollinstheClown
Dude, I'm not a rubber pad expert, but I can safely assume that they cost three fifths of f**k all. ;) Why oh WHY Microsoft removed these rubber pads from the final product beats me. They were on the original disc drive design for a very good reason, so why take them off!?
Anyway. *Hugs Gamecube*
Assuming thats true, odds are they stopped using the brand with the biggest issues some time ago after the problem became apparent, so more recently produced ones probably wouldn't have the problem, not that it helps people who would have already gotten the duff ones.
but a cloth pad would work fine, or maybe a pad made of the same stuff on the bottom of mice :P (like the g5 - Polytetrafluoroethylene feet)