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Second 360 lawsuit filed against Microsoft

Published on 20th July 2007 by Joe Martin

Microsoft is now facing two $5 Million lawsuits over allegations that the Xbox 360 scratches discs.

A second class action lawsuit has been filed against Microsoft, again alleging that the design of the Xbox 360 causes it to scratch and damage game discs.

The new lawsuit has been filed in a California court, only weeks after a similar lawsuit was filed in Florida. Both cases seek to claim a total of $5 million from Microsoft as compensation for the damage.

The new lawsuit has been filed by Christine Moskowitz and Dan Wood and alleges that the Xbox 360 has a design problem which damages discs used in the console and that Microsoft has refused to either replace or cover the cost of the damaged discs.

Microsoft has recently acknowledged that the Xbox 360 console has suffered from hardware failures, most often causing the 'red rings of doom' syndrome which can render the console useless. Microsoft has not acknowledged any problem with the disc drives however and has instead offered an extended warranty for all 360s.

Microsoft has also been semi-secretly adding a new heatsink to the console to help prevent failures. Some speculate that the failure rate of the console is as high as 30% and some specialists have refused to continue repairing the console at all due to being overwhelmed with faulty devices.

When pressed about the issue, a Microsoft spokesperson told InformationWeek that they have not received a significant number of complaints about scratched discs.

Have you suffered from scratched discs and red ring syndrome, or is your 360 still going strong and steady? Let us know in the forums.

15 Comments

Discuss in the forums Reply

fwalm 20th July 2007, 16:56

ill get you a pic of my gears of war disc to show you what it does to your discs and eit appropriately

Darkedge 20th July 2007, 17:12

i've had no problems and no RROD since launch. I don't think this is a widespread problem or as much as some people think and I remember the PS2 doing this atrociously too.

plagio 20th July 2007, 17:34

Looks like we have to wait a service pack for consoles as well before using them without issues.

devdevil85 20th July 2007, 17:58

I thought the extended warranty only covered the "red ring of death" and that all other issues were only covered under the original 1-year warranty.....hopefully I'm wrong on that, but if not...then man...more reason to get a PC or a PS3...

Smilodon 20th July 2007, 18:21

5million$ for a damaged disc?

I hope this is a company that is suing Microsoft, and not a person.

I really don't think it would cost any company 5mill.$ to replace some damaged discs...

(and i really can't see how a spinning drive can cause those kind of scratches...)

Neogumbercules 20th July 2007, 19:07

5 million in a class action lawsuit to be split by everyone in the lawsuit, which could be a lot of people. I have no faith in Microsoft in this issue. After more than a year of denying hardware problems and downplaying their poorly designed console, they just now finally admit there is a problem and take over a billion in losses. Now they are back to playing the the deny game about this issue.

kempez 20th July 2007, 19:29

Here's an idea: don't move the thing when it's on and has a disc in it??

Mine never scratches discs when I move it and it's off

Lucidity 20th July 2007, 19:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by kempez
Here's an idea: don't move the thing when it's on and has a disc in it??

Mine never scratches discs when I move it and it's off

Exactly, that and if you are really worried about it, keep it horizontal. Any of the systems from the PS2-360-PS3 are more likely to have a disc scratched in the vertical position. I don't move the consoles while they are on, and I don't stand them up, and amazingly I have never had a disc scratched. I hope those people lose and have to pay Microsoft's legal fees for being a bunch of idiots.

EQC 20th July 2007, 20:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by kempez
Here's an idea: don't move the thing when it's on and has a disc in it??

Mine never scratches discs when I move it and it's off

Well, to be fair, one of these lawsuits is in California -- that's Earthquake country. So what if the *Earth* moves my console while I'm playing a game?

(yes, I'm joking...and I'm pretty sure homeowners insurance covers damage related to natural disasters anyway)

DXR_13KE 20th July 2007, 20:34

<- he is still waiting for MS to fix the console before he buys one.

Particle Man 21st July 2007, 07:37

I modded my xbox with some third party fans, so far it's been running strong.

Skill3d 21st July 2007, 10:27

colleague of mine has the same disk scratching issue. He put a disk in the Xbox 360 and it wouldnt play, he hit eject, disk scratchinated. He send his Xbox to Microsoft and they did repair it. Though the disc is still kaput offcourse

and no he did not move his xbox...

FrankBreen 21st August 2007, 09:59

I have the disc scratching problem. My gears of war disc has gone from being perfectly new to being actually unusable now and guess what... my console has always being in the side position as they say it should.

So far my Dead or Alive 4 and GoW and my Star Trek Legacy have suffered scratches... i can send pics or a video even if needs be as you can hear the big noise it makes.

Also occasionally get told my Xbox 360 that i should insert my brand new Xbox 360 game into an Xbox 360 console!! Took me 7 attempts to get PES6 to even boot.

Sent an email to Xbox 360 support..... no response. I'm not a fanboy or anything but Sony pretty much kicks the **** out of Microsoft.

FrankBreen 21st August 2007, 13:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lucidity
Exactly, that and if you are really worried about it, keep it horizontal. Any of the systems from the PS2-360-PS3 are more likely to have a disc scratched in the vertical position. I don't move the consoles while they are on, and I don't stand them up, and amazingly I have never had a disc scratched. I hope those people lose and have to pay Microsoft's legal fees for being a bunch of idiots.

Clearly you were lucky enough not to have a defective machine. If your console scratched discs, randomly frooze, randomly rebooted & thought ur new games were DVDs i'm sure you'd be annoyed too.

My brother lives in a house where there's 4 xbox 360s and all of them have something to report. I dunno maybe its a regional thing or batch thing or something.

themax 21st August 2007, 13:30

Of course user's shouldn't move the console, but how come my Gamecube, PS3, PS2, and even Xbox can be moved without eating up the disc? If you so much as even touch the 360 while plugging in a controller or something in the back it has a high chance of giving you a nice little halo on the disc. No DVD drive should be that sensitive to movement.