Slashdot Mirror
XBox Owner Sues Microsoft
drusoicy writes "Reuters is reporting that Sean Burke has filed suit against Microsoft because his XBox system stopped reading discs (games or otherwise) after less than one year of use. Many XBox owners can relate, as XBox hard drives are known for crashing. 'The defective XBox's stop working after minimal usage, after unreasonably, unconscionably, unusually and unexpectedly short amounts of time,' the lawsuit said. The suit will probably become class action, and seeks to represent anyone who has purchased an XBOX since the 2001 launch."
Does the world really need another lawsuit?
I didn't think history would repeat itself so soon. How many people remember the class-action lawsuit against Sony? They had the infamous "Disk Read Error" on the 1st generation PS2s. If I recall correctly, Sony has to repair or replace the affected systems, even if they are out of warranty (I'm sure someone will correct me if I am mistaken).
Reputable links are pretty sparse, but a quick Google search revealed a FAQ that has surfaced in several places. I usually despise class-action suits, they tend to only make lawyers rich, but as the owner of a failed 1st gen PS2, I have to say this might be a worthy use of it. IANAL, etc.
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
Rest assured that MS doesn't want their Xbox to die after a length of time. As /. has speculated in the past, MS is selling them at a loss. Supposedly, the money is in the support services and gaming. I bet it will get repaired if it is wihtin the warranty period.
;). I thought that Xbox needed a TV turner but now I believe that the new market is going to be TCP/IP movie center rather than Rf coax.
Also, MS has rolled out the media center for Xbox. I speculate that MS is trying to enter the Movies Over IP (moops from Seinfeld
'...unreasonably, unconscionably, unusually and unexpectedly short amounts of time,'
is he being represented by Jackie Childs?
SIGUSR1
Bitch all you want about the Xbox, but the PS2 is just as bad and the older models were worse. Between crapped out pickups and fried power supplies quite few people are on their second or third PS2.
I don't know where to start...
ALL pieces of hardware are known to stop working for some amount of people. That's why people get WARRANTIES. The most common reason for things to stop working is due to misuse... e.g. putting it on the carpet so it collects dust.
Why do we have a slashdot story on a piece of hardware that stopped working? and why XBox (rhetorical question)? why not apple? i'm sure a fair amount of macs stop working within a year as well.
My computer stopped working after 6 months... what did I do? I sent it in to get it repaired... for FREE because of a warranty (i'm guessing XBox has a 1 year warranty, at least... but i don't know).
It made me angry that it was such an inconvenience to send it in, but you don't see me filing a freaking lawsuit about it. let alone class action.
Crashing is probably the precise reason why MS is rumored to be not having a HD in Xbox2/Xenon -- putting a hard drive in a console used by kids and likely to be picked up, moved, jolted, dropped, etc. is a bad idea.
-- Samir Gupta, Ph. D. Head, New Technology Research Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan.
Damn! Makes me wish I woulda bought one!
Does this mean that if they win with the lawsuit Microsoft would have to promise not to do it anymore?
Microsoft has been fixing these problems even if the XBox is outside of the warranty period. I guess Sean Burke was too stupid to realize that MS has a suppost number.
Is like shooting a .22 at Godzilla.
The article says nothing about the warranty on the xBox and if Microsoft is willing to repair or replace the unit. What is the warranty?
That's what you get for using the mod-chip.
Letter
Isn't the xbox still under warranty after one year of use? I have owned an xbox since the beginning of 2001 and it has never had a problem. I personally think this is just some money grubbing in action.
Dammit I knew we shouldn't have picked up that lot of IBM Deathstar drives off eBay...
Come on, you have guarantee don't you ?
... I think I should sue M$, I chipped my box, and now it reads pirated copies violating a bunch of laws ...
Walk in and have it changed....
lawsuit for hardware failure? What the hell is this ?
Hmm
STOP BEING DAMN STUPID !
I dislike MS as much as the next Slashdotter, but suing them because his particular X-Box broke seems ridiculous. I suppose people could claim that they have suffered with the loss of their saved games if the HD failed, but that isn't the case with this guy.
Even as this story is being read, MS is jacking the price of software up another $100 to recoup the losses they anticipate from this.
--- Asking inconvenient questions for over 30 years...
perhaps M$ should consider a voluntary recall. This would save a lot of money, would it not? (lawyer fees, etc, etc.) Possibly OT - I have a 1st gen PS2 with that problem starting to appear, and if someone has any insight on whether or not I can still have something done about fixing this at Sony's cost or am I out of luck at this point?
this makes my ancient Nintendo64 game cartrages sound sweet...
:^)
don't laugh, mine still works
if this is successful, PS2 owners should pursue similiar damages against Sony. My PS2 stopped reading older games and some DVD movies. Having read about problems like this before, i knew what needed to be done. Fix it myself, since Sony won't recognize it as a defect in the system and repair it for you. Unless you want to shell out a ton of dough for shipping and repair costs, which almost cost as much as a new PS2 would. It is a common issue with the PS2s, and its simple to fix. Yet sony wont accept the responsibility for it.
"his XBox system stopped reading discs (games or otherwise) after less than one year of use"
I work in retail, for a company that sells both x-boxes and PS2s. I know there are a lot more PS2s than X-boxes, but I probably see 20 PS2s to every X-Box being returned due to being defective, and we honor manufactuer's warranty. I know that PS2s have had cooling problems in the past too, but I've never heard anything about a specific reliability issue with X-Boxes. Basically, are there any numbers or points that show otherwise?
Among the first things an xbox modder does is check out the dvd drive. Generally speaking, the phillips drives are the worse. The thompson drives can be okay, but the samsung drives are considered to be the best because they will allow for the widest reading range of media (cd-r, dc-rw, dvd-r, etc.)
In my experiences, the phillips drives are the hardest to read with, even just slightly scratched or dirty dvds give it problems...the thompson and samsung drives are able to read the same discs with no problems most of the time (some discs are just play unreadble). My thompson drive will read cd-rw disks but only from select media vendors, the samsung drive seems to read everything (hence the reason I've upgrade the 2 phillips drives with samsung drives).
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
The Power supply is also a well-known issue on early boxen
A friend had his son's Xbox catch fire. I don't know if there was actual flame, but there was snapping and smoke. Of course, calling MS support, he found out that the warranty was voided because he opened it up to see what might have burned up. So he is basically SOL, and has to buy a new one if he and his son want to make use of the games they bought. He can certainly afford it, and he actually bought another one the next day. But he checked on the net and I guess this wasn't the first time this has happened. I think the PS blew out or something. Kind of scary.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
i return my hardware when it develops a conscience.
the last thing i want is my xbox wondering about anything but its own meagre existence.
you don't have to outrun the bear, just the slowest person in your group.
We might get a whole 18 dollars back. While the lawers get millions.
Also, this is the kind of pre-Christmas advertising lots of money can't downplay.
"mom, my xbox brokeded... *sniffle* I can't kill people in games now. *whimper*"
"WELL! We'll just sue that Mr. Gates, how dare his company sell a shoddy product!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
teh XBOX settlement will be XBOX HUEG!!!LOLBBBQ! :P
Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
DVD drives are thompsons drive which are prone to failing, I got a warranty on my xbox, lasted me one year and got it replaced at best buy.
Fortunately, it still works as a door-stop.
Or maybe it's just a forced upgrade. Nah, Microsoft would never do anything like that.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Maybe Microsoft should go back to what it does best: Selling reliable, affordable and cutting-edge software. This hardware thing just isn't panning out as planned. Locution: The act of transforming Captain Picard into Locutus.
..is that someone is hogging for publicity. Is there technical grounds for this lawsuit? No. warranty should damn well cover the excuse for the lawsuit, malfunction in no way threatened user's well-being, health or personal safety (withdrawal shakes aside) and compared to the number of XBox systems on the market, it's easy to claim that this is 'acceptable malfunction rate'.
IMO, this guy is trying to get a spotlight, as well as maybe a bit of money for a settlement - perhaps Micro$oft would be happier to pay him off quickly than to get some (more) negative publicity. Then again, with all the negative stuff about M$ circulating these days, what's another minor hardware-related issue? They'll just blame whoever manufactured the drives.
'...computers in the future may have only 1000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1.5 tons...' Popular Mechanics, 03/49'
"The Thomspon Drive" is well known to XBox players. They break down after a few months of use, and microsoft has pretty much thrown their hands up in the air at the whole situation. In all these years they have never done or said anything about it. The only thing you can do is send it in for repair, at which they charge you for it full price as if it was your own fault.
That would be fine if a few failure, but this is a failure on a massive scale. Almost everyone who has an XBox with a thompson drive has a failing system. Mine has recently started to break down, and I'm lucky the new Baldur's Gate game has a save point every 2 minutes, because I had to retstart the machine 20 times in a span of 45 minutes the last time I played.
There goes a Halo 2 sale.
I think the idea in this case is that after paying $300 (at launch) for the system, a reasonable expectation is that it would last more than a year before malfunctioning under normal use. The warranty that MS provides for the XBox system is only 90 days, without having to pay extra for a "service contract/extended warranty/etc" through whichever store you bought your system from. Having worked in a store for a rather large video game chain, I can speak from experience that roughly 10% of all new system purchases spend the extra money to get the extended in-store warranty.
Microsoft fixed mine for free after i complained, but many people have problems with these drives, and i'm very happy that this guy is suing MS.
The problem stems from the Thomson drives used in the Mexican factories -- the chinese factories use Philips and Samsung drives which have no problems, but Thomson drives are notorious for failing in the Xbox community.
Just one look at the official xbox forums reveals hundreds of complaints about dirty disk errors, and on eBay and Xbox parts dealer websites like llamma.com, DVD lasers are the most often sold parts.
From what i understand, the drives themselves aren't really defective -- they're built fine, the problem is that the resistor on the laser is set too high, and as a result, the laser is too weak to read the disks -- thomson drives refuse to read CD-Rs, for that very reason.
Microsoft still won't acknowledge that this problem exists, but over the past few years, they've slowly but surely shifted to using more samsung drives, and less thomson drives, so i'm sure they're at least aware of the problem internally.
My old Mexico-Thomson Xbox works fine now after the repairs -- they replaced the drive with another thomson, which has given me no problems since. But it still doesn't read CD-Rs, whereas my Chinese-built Philips xbox has no qualms whatsoever reading the crappiest of CD-Rs..
Newsie, Moderator, www.tauniverse.com
Sign me up!
who | grep -i blond | date cd ~; unzip; touch; strip; finger; mount; gasp; yes; uptime; umount; sleep
..Microsoft sues you! ....oh wait
I was joking actually, not trolling.
I got mine replaced for free, and paid only the shipping costs. So, it wasn't any kind of unreasonable situation, MSFT refusing to support their product, at that time - they just replaced it.
However, it's been awhile since then, and I imagine that at some point they saw this was a much bigger problem, and at that point shifted into a different mode.
Presumably, some number cruncher figured out that the number of people who'd just cough up or forget about it compared to the people who'd demand a freebie or sue would work out in such a way that it was to their advantage to handle it this way rather than issue a recall/replacement announcement.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Anybody remember the bad contacts on the old front loaded NES. The famicom didn't have that problem. Stupid design. Can I sue for all the times I injured myself by jamming the cart in with excessive force? Because it only works when you use excessive force. but you gotta give it to the NES, it still works after all the abuse I unleased upon it.
But why isn't anyone suing Sony for the same thing?
I wish those console sales trackers would publish statistics on reliability. I know it would be impossible to do it perfectly. Maybe do a test study to get some idea, because I have a feeling that the true market share numbers are much different than the % purchased that they give now.
Just return your x-box if it breaks. Don't demean yourself by claiming all sorts of absurd damages.
Amazing magic tricks
the dvd laser in mine went out after about 9 months. the cost for a do it yourself repair was about $100. since the drives have a special pinout. So I just gave up on it and stuck with PS2.
i still have the useless hulk so I hope this suit goes somewhere. but probably I will get a $10.00 off coupon for MS products and a few lawyers will get even more rich.
What did this guy expect????
Only an idiot would think that "The Microsoft Brand Promise" was something other than that.
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
The Hot Coffee lawsuit that was successfully brought against McDonalds was because of a faulty coffee brewer that was heating the coffee past "safe" levels as designated by the health department.
When the lady got burned she suffered 3rd degree burns on her legs and pelvis causing her immence pain and all the other fun stuff that goes along with getting 3rd degree burns (medical treatment, scarring, lost work, etc..) All of this was due to McDonalds NOT repairing a faulty piece of equipment. Next time you want to use a frivilous lawsuit example try the people that sued McDonalds for making them fat (they didnt get anything but a laugh, but the pain that this lady suffered from 3rd degree burns at the hands of a greedy corporation should not be "blown off" as a frivilous lawsuit).
:)(smile)
Upon taking the case apart and starting the box, I found that the top plate of the DVD drive had warped over time, and was no longer pushing the top spindle down on the disc. This was causing the disc to fail to spin with the motor. It was fixed by removing the top plate of the DVD drive and bending it back into place, then using some foam to sit between the top of the XBOX case and the top plate of the DVD drive. As hacky as this sounds, it actually works, and his XBOX hasn't given him any problems of that nature since.
I wish I had bothered to remember the brand of drive. In their defense, I don't think he ever left the XBOX off ...
"He may look like an idiot, and talk like an idiot, but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot." - Duck Soup
I have a Thompson drive in my xbox, and I have had absolutely 0 read errors... Of course, I play all of my games from the HDD, and never use the optical drive at all :)
I just love how /. moderators assume the worst possible intention of anything anyone posts.
I mean...come on! You paid between $150 and $300 for a COMPUTER (limited tho in it's use) and you expect them to use top-of-the-line components? They calculate the % failure and avg. cost of repair vs. warranty length and component cost. If they saved $10 million by using cheaper CD-ROMs and it cost them $250K in warranty repairs...how can you blame them? This is NORMAL for any mfg. business.
Unless this dolt can somehow PROVE that MS *INTENTIONALLY* used sub-standard (read garbage, not just inexpensive) components in the xbox I can't see how the lawsuit has any merit.
All I have to say is this is the sort of thing that happens when you outsource to Mexico. I mean, c'mon folks. They built THE Volkswagen Beetle for 30 years after they took it off the market. Or something like that. Anyhow, I know people who have sent there XBox's in and the same thing happens a year later. Freakin' figures... Microsoft.
"Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky"-Pink Floyd
The plaintiff, Sean Burke, said his console stopped reading any and all discs after less than a year of use, whether those discs were games, CDs or DVDs.
He probably scratched the hell out of the lens.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
3 Months from date of purchase. Can you imagine buying a PC that was only warrantied for 3 months against any and all defects or failures?
...and people make webservers out of those? Sorry, I'll stick to my good ol' RH webserver.
printf($randomline(sigs.txt) \n "-- "$randomline(authors.txt));
-- myself
Unless it goes class action then it's like one person (ok, not a person, a lawyer) shooting 100k .22 rounds at Godzilla at one time. Then the legal staff will feed on it's rotting carcass.
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
I have never heard of xbox's breaking but I have heard a whole lot of horror stories about ps2's just dieing and i just got that first hand. I haden't played my playstaion 2 in a while and I saw GTA: San Andreas was out so I bought it only to turn on my playstation 2 to see squiggly black lines. Now I got a game that I can't play (and a bunch of others) and a playstation 2 that i can only hear sound on. Oh and it works some times but it suddenly reboots. Consoles suck, I wish these companies would test these things more instead of rushing them out the door to beat the other guys. ps. if you know what is wrong with my ps2 and how to fix it please inform me, i don't want to shell out another $150 for a ps 2 that will be replaced fairly soon with newer consoles
just because your a schizophrenic doesn't mean people arn't really out to get you
And your palmpilot was made where (mine is mexican)
My car has over 75k miles and it hasn't had problems.
I think they're still building the new beetle (and lots of other VWss in Mexico). Actually I think many of the major carmakers have plants in Mexico.
After all, the X-Box live service does upgrade remote hardware without user intervention. Perhaps the 'malfunction' was introduced to encourage user to use XBox 2, but deployed too early.
I had the same problem, too, then I discovered this huge web forum and discovered that I....wasn't alone :|
Following the forum's advice, I notified Microsoft of the problem, and they "unofficially" replaced it for free, even though it was out of warranty.
My take on it was that Microsoft clearly knew about the problem early on, but figured it was much cheaper to make discrete replacements to complaining customers, than formally announce a recall.
-jc
If you go back and look at all the different dirves MS has used since the launch it is obvious they dont know how to come up with a solution. The first generation couldnt read hardly any burned cds and or dvds. Then as it moved to the second to the fourth you began to see an increase in compatibility, but still not what it should be. Now with the most recent version, it will read some burned dvds but forget certain cds!
Step one: Purchase a new replacement drive on eBay from this guy. (He always has an auction running, even though this one is about to end). Cost: $24 + $8 S+H
Step two: Open up your xbox (many tutorials available on xbox-scene.com)
Step three: Replace the drive. You'll also need to remove the front bezel of the old drive and put it on the new one.
Step four: put it back together again.
Time for repair: 15 minutes.
I was hoping this lawsuit was about Microsoft remotely deleting the contents of the hard drives XBox GNU/Linux users.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
is that whether or not there is a warranty, under the law consumers can have a reasonable expectation that their machines are most likely to continue working. If there is a consistent pattern of the product not working in a specific way, and the company doesn't take steps to deal with this (like, say, replacing them free), the company can been seen to have failed their customers. That's why class actions exist.
So if one guy buys an XBox and two months after the warranty expires it won't boot up anymore, too bad, hardware just goes bad sometimes. But if thousands of XBoxes all across the country consistently break in the same way, sometimes inside the warranty, some not, and this continues for a couple years-- as has happened-- then the product can be seen as defective. In this case, a class action would not be frivolous; this is in fact the intended use of a class action.
I'm not sure if it warrants the starting of a class action suit, but I have to concur that the Xbox (as well as PS2) have problems with reliability.
Whilst I haven't had any problems with my PS2 (I was a late adopter, purchased my PS2 ~9 months after US launch)
I did have one friend who experienced the problem of his PS2 ceasing to play DVDs and certain titles because the laser went out of alignment.
The first Xbox I bought (from SoftwareEtc) was DOA, brought it home, and it failed right out of the box, wouldn't boot up. I brought it back and exchanged it at, the second xbox lasted for 10 days, after which it also stopped booting.
The third one I'm presently using has been functioning without problems for almost 2 years, with moderate usage.
Another friend of mine had to recently replace the optical drive on his Xbox, after a year of light usage (10 - 20 hours a month) the drive stopped reading certain games.
None of these systems were modded.
You can have it >Cheap, >Good, >Fast. Pick any two.
--
make install -not war
...but I wonder if Microsoft purposely designed the Xbox's hardware to have a short life to prevent piracy (mod your Xbox, lose your warranty, your Xbox takes a shit, your're screwed).
I can smell the settlement already.
I'll take one copy of Halo 3 please.
But why isn't anyone suing Sony for the same thing?
They did.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I am a x-box owner that is stuck with a useless peice of plastic in my entertainment center. I purchased the x-box on a waiting list when it was release and I dont use it frequently.
I recently purchased the Star Wars Trilogy that has a demo for Battlefront on the x-tra disc. I tossed all 4 discs in my x-box to find that none are readable. The full release of Battlefront is also not readable.
I contacted Microsoft and they notified me that I needed to send them my x-box and they will replace my dvd-rom for 80 dollars b/c it is an older dvd reader. Why should I pay for something this?
This is a console system not a PC. When i go to the store and purchase a X-Box or PS2 game I should have to look at system requirements prior to purchasing. Every game should be based on one standard. This is bull crap and I hope they win the lawsuit so i can get a free dvd upgrade.
... I don't think there's a faster way to get modded to "+5, Insightful" than to defend the McDonalds coffee lawsuit verdict.
(Which, by the way, was later overturned by a judge that, unlike the original jury, exhibited detectable brain-wave activity.)
I've had three xboxes in three years... the first two just stopped reading disks reliably. they haven't lasted more then a year and I'm not going to open them up (that's what they tell us not to do, right?). sony's are the same way! I had a friend who's PS would only read disks if you placed it on it's top (don't ask me why). how can companies get away with such shoddy work. I know they're all bringing the cost down to try to lower the selling price, but is it really worth the extra $50 I saved if I have to buy another one ($150) a year later?! maybe this will be a class action!
Best FPS gaming site on the net... ok, well maybe not the best
Why, if MS software crashes, shouldn't MS hardware do the same?
I don't own an X-box and really can't weigh in on facts because I don't have any and don't care enough to make 'em up (unlike many of our politicians).
But I can float some questions:
1. Has MS ever delivered a reliable gen 1
product?
2. Is this a through and through Microsoft
product or are they just the marketers
of someone else's (custom) design, built
in a contract manufacturers plant?
3. Why are so many slashdotters buying
Microsoft X-Boxes?
My girlfriends Xbox failed earlier this summer. The unit was just under 2 years old. Xbox wanted $120 to fix it eventhough I knew it was just a failed DVD drive. After some research, it turns out that most early Xbox's used a drive manufactured by Thompson. As a general rule the Thompson drives fail at exactly 2 years. I dug around and found as many direct numbers to the support company and harrased them daily for about a week. I finally mentioned the idea of a class action suit ... and like magic, they offered to replace the drive for free with a new warranty to boot. I actually had fun tracking down employees based on personal websites listing resumes.
Here's a hint.
1)Don't make bad jokes
2)Don't tie your self-image to slashdot karma. Since you're about to lose even more. Bitching about bitching is still bitching!
Of course I know that hard drives and drives will fail. Especially with drives that use a laser to read the information off the disc, eventually the laser would burn out. It happened to me literally a year and one month after I had purchased the xbox, so my "warranty" had expired...(Maybe it's because I left it on for 80 hours straight once...not always playing but when I would go somewhere I would pause it and just leave it running) But I called up Microsoft and they said "Sure, it'll be $100 + shipping" to fix it! I was like "You're kidding...well, don't you guys have an extended warranty?" "Sure, it costs $50." So I hung up the phone, called back, purchased an extended warranty and then said "I'd like to enact my warranty please." It covers me for 2 years *and* I only had to pay like $8 in shipping. Better than spending $149 clams(at the time) for a new xbox. Normally it would have been more adventageous to throw out the xbox, but I own more than the cost of the xbox in games, most of which I play fairly frequently. What I *do* have a beef with, is the way in which their communicator for xbox live is designed. If you've never seen it, the earpiece/microphone is attached to the headband which holds the unit on your head by a flimsy piece of plastic. So far I've had 2 of them break on me by just picking them up and having the communicator cord snag on something. I was *really* mad about that, because that's not excessive abuse, it's just normal use. I called MS and told them their product was defective, and they said "Well, sorry, there's nothing we can do about it." My solution: Buy a third-party xbox live headset. Logitech sells one for not much more than the xbox one, and it looks a little sturdier. Of course, I need something called "money" to buy one, of which that is really scarce at the moment.
I can't believe they missed out understandably, unashamadily, unauthorized, unavoidably and 614 other possibilities!
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Like there are people not modchipping x-boxes and not upgrading the disk??? It's a strange world (best line in Blue Velvet by Jeffrey.)
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
The non replacable XBox Hard drive only lasts for 24 months...
My Xbox lasted a good 3 years before it started having these problems. It took all of about 10 minutes to fix too. http://www.llamma.com/xbox/Repairs/cleaning_your_d vd_drive.htm
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, "unconscionable" is defined as "An unconscionable size, amount, or length of time is too great and is unacceptable". So, it seems a bit odd using "unconscionable" and "short amounts of time" in the same sentence.
How about this POS too. Mine died just out of warranty and Sony was cool enough to send me a refurb which worked for about 9 months. I had to open it and replace the drive mechanism.
I have NEVER seen electronics built so incredibly cheaply. I got it back together and it works, but superglue is holding the PAPER backed wires for the reset and power button. I doubt I could open it again and have it survive.
My PS1 on the other hand is a brick.
I guess with the NHL Lockout Sean Burke of the Philadelphia Flyers had to find some hockey to play. When it comes to hockey I guess the XBOX delivers with NHL2k5 :)
With nothing better to do he probably had his XBOX turned on 24 hours a day 7 days a week for the last few months. Any Microsoft System is doomed to failure with uptime like that!
only Bambi can win a fight with Godzilla.....
I expect coffee hot enough to scald me when it is fresh.
I expect that if I am stupid enough to put scalding water between my legs, I'll be burned.
The only people who defend this are usually lawyers.
SLL
Jackie Chiles?
Xbox hard drives are not known for crashing. Where does that come from? The problem is the DVD Roms are known to be unrealiable depending on the models. My Xbox (bought it the day it came out) doesn't read discs anymore either. Mine has a Thompson drive in it and that one seems to be the most unreliable (Phillips and Samsung models are also used).
Good on people for taking action however, what are their chances of suceeding???
I mean, Microsoft was been in lawsuits for years. Against other big companies and they managed quite well. So, what are the changes that a few unsatisfied people will win against a huge company which with out a doubt emplays permenant lawyers?
Could this be just a waste of time?
I sent it in after a friend that works as Microsoft mentioned that internally there had been word that the first generation Xboxes had problems reading discs. After I got it back it worked fine, until just recently it started giving the me the dirty disc errors.
My brother sent me a link about the differences in drives Thomson vs Phillips... and I checked.. they replaced it with a Thomson..
Unluckly I did not renew the extended warranty.. so I guess I am pretty much screwed. I hope they have to recall these and fix them properly. I paid for the extended warranty once, I shouldn't have to pay for it twice to get something they should have fixed the first time correctly. (If my friend who does not work in the Xbox division, knew about it at the time I originally sent it in, then chances are good they realized they were putting troublesome hardware back in my xbox at the time they "fixed" it.)
shotty hardware by a company who just doesn't care anyways. Did that really suprise you with all the problems of windows OS?
(Otherwise I'm really happy with it btw.)
Technically, the article is all wrong. I've never heard of an Xbox hard-drive crashing, although I'm sure it's probably happened. Specifically, it should be referring to the faulty disc drive, which is a common problem, and normally refers to Thompson drives that were in most launch Xbox's. The warranty is 90 days, just like on most consumer level electronics. Why file a lawsuit though, when he could have just called Microsoft and bitched about it? I've read many accounts where people have complained about a faulty disc drive a few times and gotten their Xbox fixed for free.
This is a perfect reason why you can't trust sales numbers of consoles. Half the xboxes sold were to alreay existant owners!
(Bonus tidbit: I can attest to the xbox being faulty, had two go bad)
Al Sharpton. (Is he a lawyer?)
From the Windoze Eula: "To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Manufacturer and its suppliers disclaim all other warranties, either express or implied, including, but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, with regard to the SOFTWARE and the accompanying written materials. Without limiting the foregoing, Manufacturer does not warrant that the operation of the SOFTWARE will be uninterrupted or error free." But hardware doesn't have one of those, or does it?
Unfortunately my Xbox functions, I just don't have anythin' all that fun to play on it.
No sig for you!!
It works fine, ive left it on for days at a time, had it for over a year now. Course ive never put anything in it except games, and no haxxs or mods either.
:D
The only console ive had a prob with was a PS2 - I had one of the first versions - the one with seperate dvd and cd readers in it - one failed and it only read half of my games. Thats when Its time to take the failed console outside, set on fire, bash with large hammer, take pics and send to manufacturer. Wont get any lawyers rich but sure made me feel better
---
My sig was stolen - the insurance company replaced it with this one.
The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act is outlined here for the benefit of business owners.
The bottom line is that there is always an 'implied warranty' that a product will perform.
This implied warranty supersedes any limited (i.e. 90 days for the XBOX) warranties.
One could reasonably expect a computer or CDplayer or car radio to last 5 years. If it craps out in 6 months, one has recourse. This is true even if the limited warranty says 90 days. Push hard and the seller will come around. Sometimes all it takes is a copy of the referenced URL and sometimes it takes a lawsuit.
Do not look into LASER with remaining eye!
A friend is always asking me if he should buy an xbox or something else. (but he never gonna buy the damn thing anyway)
I never had any good reason to tell him not to buy an xbox, except that is made by Microsoft.
Finally I have a good reason to tell him not to buy an xbox.
Maybe they now stop teasing me...
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
When I was a kid, I had an old Atari (the big brown box-looking ones, not the slick black next generation ones, sorry can't remember model #), which endured many years of usage, and which of course I never dusted. It even took quite a beating, I literally threw cartridges (with all the might a 8yo boy can muster) on the walls, kicked the Atari. Heck, even when the plastic wrapping fell apart from the cartridge (from too much throwing on walls [I guess I had anger management problems :D]), the cartridges were still usable. And last time I checked (maybe 5 years ago), the Atari was still working perfectly. So yes, these things were so robust it's almost obscene, and the old days were good.
My wife and I registered for an Xbox for our wedding. She wanted a DVD player. I wanted Steel Batallion, Halo, and JSRF.
Six months after the wedding, it died. We were watching some dumb movie we'd rented, and it froze up. From that point on, it wouldn't re-boot, and it wouldn't eject the disc drive.
Remember how we were watching a rented movie?
It cost us $153.00 to have it repaired. This was just after the Xbox mark down, so a new Xbox would have cost only $199.99.
Fortunately, the folks at Blockbuster were quite reasonable, and decided not to charge us late fees for the two months it took for the Xbox service center to figure out that the logic board had died. Eventually, we got the Xbox and the movie back.
Also, we were fortunate because once the repair work was done, the extended warranty period re-opened and we were able to get more coverage.
Still, $153.00 extra to get a gift fixed within six months is obnoxious.
--AC
This guy's just giving in to peer pressure.
Ohh, did not know it was 90 days.
Here in central america Xboxes come chipped with 90 days, and in larger stores they come (unchipped) and 1 year warranty (I think)
Yes 90 days is a joke, but when I buy a computer I expect at least a FAN to die within a year, on the other hand when I buy an entertainment component I expect not to touch it for at least 3 years (not even open it for cleaning)
how much is the in store extended warranty ?
Caveat emptor? Buyer beware. Did somebody change the laws since I was in junior high school? You bought something that should have cost $250 for $150 and now your complaining because it broke instead of lasting forever? Since when can you sue somebody for that? What's wrong with you people. That's how the free market econmy works. Some companies put out good products that cost more and some people buy them. Other companies put out junk for less and other people buy those. Next time buy from a reputable company if you want a product that lasts forever. Duh.
When I buy a car, I generally look for the one that has the highest reliability rating, and NOT the one that offers the longest warranty (all other things being equal, which they never are, of course). I'd rather have a product I can depend on, rather that one the manufacture is implicitly stating is likely to fail.
Remember kid: there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
She would be hot in that photo if her nipples were hard. That would be awesome.
(Not that anyone will read or pay attention to this post, but I'll post so I can track this topic in the future.)
My wife bought me an XBox last Christmas (2003). Right out of the box it had trouble reading a new copy of Project Gotham 2. It usually takes the box 2 tries to boot up with this disc. Occasionally other discs will choke at startup, too.
I don't use the XBox heavily, and the problem hasn't gotten worse that I can tell. But if this does become a class action suit, I may partake. And if the drive ever does go completely south it's nice to know it can be swapped out.
With Halo 2 and MechAssault 2 coming out this year, I anticipate the machine will be getting a LOT of use in the near future. B^)
- Jasen.
The Thomson won't read CD-Rs because DVDs use a different wavelength of light than CDs do. The DVD wavelength can be used to read pressed CDs, but not CD-Rs. Early DVD drives had this problem. If you want your drive to read both DVDs and CD-Rs (or to read CDs more rapidly/accurately) you have to put two light emitters in there, one for each wavelength of light.
The Thomson doesn't have the other wavelength because it didn't need it. It surely saved money having only one laser.
Sony has a patent on a dual-wavelength laser they invented to get around this problem cheaply, they first used it in the PS2.
It isn't that resistor, that's just internet legend.
BTW, I still have an Xbox with the original Thomson drive, it works fine. Another friend has one from the first two months with that drive (I used to own it, sold it to him), it doesn't work very well. It does work, it reads discs, but it is very fidgety.
No. Fuck that.
We are a litigious society because we have no useful consumer protection - here, consumer protection is usually insane over-protection, and a complete lack everywhere else - and our legal system is completely fucked, and encourages frivilous lawsuits. Other countries don't have this problem, and they have much more useful consumer protection.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I wasn't aware that microsoft actually sold x boxes to consumers. Surely they'd have to sue whoever sold it to them?
There are three obvious remedies:
1) Replace the X-Box with a new or reconditioned X-Box with a warranty the same as a new X-Box. Small cash award due to downtime.
2) A complete refund for the unit. The customer is on his own for non-bundled software though. In theory, he can buy a new X-Box with his refund and keep his software investment.
3) assuming MS doesn't go for the full refund, a coupon good for the full purchase price good towards MS gaming hardware or software
4) a pro-rated refund based on how much "useful life" he got out of the product. Basically, he gets, in cash, the value of a used X-Box on the day before it started having problems.
If MS is nice, it will offer 1, 2, or both. If it's greedy, and offers 3 AND 4 to all affected customers, it will short-circuit any lawsuits and save a boatload of legal fees on all sides.
If MS does NOT offer any remedy quickly, I hope the Federal Trade Commission steps in and leans on them.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
has been running for over a year now, it just recently developed the "cant read discs" problem. The XBOX rep came in, formatted the hard drive somehow, and, it works now.
I know there is a way to reformat your home hard drive, some set of controls to press on some dashbaord screen, but, I dont know what, anyone care to spill the beans?
The hockey player?
The perl guy?
The dead guy?
The author?
The VP of Iomega?
The musician?
ALL pieces of hardware are known to stop working for some amount of people. That's why people get WARRANTIES. The most common reason for things to stop working is due to misuse... e.g. putting it on the carpet so it collects dust.
/. or to computers. 60 minutes has done stories on shoddy products as well. Canadian TV watchers might remember two newsmagazine shows CBC's "Marketwatch" and CTV's "Live it Up!" that were almost exclusively dedicated to the quality of goods and services (like "Consumer Reports" for TV). People want a heads up when they could be buying a potential lemon. Because of this story, I know that if I ever get an XBox it might acutally be worth getting Future Shop's extended warranty for a change.
/. before (Remember the early powerbooks with the flakey power connectors? Hot cube machines? Earphones on some iPods?). The thing is, Apple got bitten by this and now when there are failures, they promptly and properly respond, even if the cause of the failure is questionable. With the latest iMac, most components are even user serviceable so you don't even have to send in your machine--Apple will overnight the needed parts at no cost to you. It's not always when it breaks down--it's the service you get when it happens.
True enough, but when does it become unreasonable? Is one percent or ten percent premature failure rate acceptable? Also, ALL warranties are limited in some way, and more often than not do not cover damage due to misuse. Guess who defines "misuse"--the manufacturer. Is it really reasonable to consider operation of a home game console on a carpeted surface misuse?
HELLOOO...I think engineers would've figured out that even since before the Atari 2600, home video games are used mostly by kids, teens and college students in carpeted or otherwise "harsh" environments like basement rumpus rooms, dorm rooms, etc? The damn thing is usually hooked up to a big screen and has wired controllers for cryin' out loud...if MS wanted the XBox to sit on a clean, well ventilated shelf or desk like the PC it really is, then it should've come with wireless controllers so players could sit back from the TV without taking the machine and setting it on the floor.
Why do we have a slashdot story on a piece of hardware that stopped working? and why XBox (rhetorical question)? why not apple? i'm sure a fair amount of macs stop working within a year as well.
Because it stops working too quickly and too often? It isn't unique to
Why XBox? Becuase it is proving to be flimsy. Why not apple? Because they build quality products at this very moment. Apple HAS received a slagging from
My computer stopped working after 6 months... what did I do? I sent it in to get it repaired... for FREE because of a warranty
I'm glad your experience was relatively positive. I know of a builder here who (if possible) will immediately give you an identical replacement machine at no cost to you (and will even swap the hard drive from your machine, if the hard drive is not the cause of failure--so you don't even lose your data). Unfortunately, many companies are not so generous with their warranty policies. All too often, the warranty terms are in two columns of fine print on an A4 sheet that accidentally gets thrown away with the packing material--and the manufacturer follows it to the letter looking for any reason not to help you out. I'm not sure how Microsoft handles warranty claims, but if someone wants to sue maybe its more like the latter case.
I agree, it seems that the US is far to litigous and that the lawsuit seems frivilous. However, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say there MUST be a reason this person wasn't satisfied with just taking it in for repair. Are these machines consistently failing during warranty coverage? Did he get grief from Microsoft over the failure because they claimed he abused the product? Anyone out there care to relate their experiences?
As so
The more and more of these large and broad class-action lawsuits that I see, the more freightened and encouraged I become. As someone posted before, yes, class-action lawsuits make very little money for the plaintiffs, but boo-queue (boo-koo?) bucks for the lawyers involved.
It wouldn't take much legislation at all to resolve that problem. What if there came a day where the class-action lawsuit was a means for redistributing the wealth that corporations amass back to the consumers they swindle? If, for example, PalmOne makes $100 pure profit (an unreasonable figure, I'm sure) off the sale of every high-end palm. The palm purchasers band together, whine, and get a refund of $100.
Egads, It could become like the crappy mail-in-rebate system. Buy this product which someone says has this major flaw, get a big refund from the ensuing class-action lawsuit!
Elderly widows begin to join thousands of class-action lawsuits to help supplement their fixed income.
Defective and flawed products have increased sales due to the possible rebates from the class-action suit. Product quality drops to an all-time low.
Corporate tax reform is dropped in leu of class-action suit reform.
I think I have the idea for my next novel...
"One touch of Darwin makes the whole world kin." George Bernard Shaw
I bought my PS2 launch day and it has yet to have an issue. Guess we are in an exclusive club!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As much as I hate having an extended warranty shoved down my throat at a retail outlet, I do appreciate the fact that at least I have a choice. If I want insurance that my product will work for 3,4,5 years then I can pay more and get it, but on the otherhand I also have the freedom to buy the product with the manufacturers rather limited warranty and not pay any more than I have to for the product. Nothing is free, reliability costs money and so does support. At least making the extended warranty a separate purchase gives the consumer the choice.
-- Adam
Dude, update your site. I've got a 13b vert, and I'm dying to hear how your 20b comes out.
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
surely any xbox owning geek should be looking at
http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/
or
http://www.xbox-linux.org/
if they want software?
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
My short saga is a bit interesting: I only use my xbox for games. Proper licensed ones. The drive was a Thompson, and had been progressively giving me more and more disc read errors until it flat out refused to read most games. This was 14 months after purchase. I called Microsoft, got the $130 price for repair that it was out of warranty, told them I was upset. During the dialogue, I gave them my work address. And was planning to buy a new Xbox. I work for a major metropolitan newspaper, however. I received a call back from Microsoft in about 90 minutes. I believe it was the same CS rep with a second person sitting nearby. She would stop and whisper to him occasionally. The dialogue went something like: "We understand that you have a problem, and since the box is so near the warranty expiration, we can replace the system at a reduced price. $50 and you cover shipping." Whisper. "Actually we can do as a customer appeciation replacement if you just cover shipping." Whisper. "It appears that your Xbox is still under warranty, so we can just go ahead and replace it. I'll send you a prepaid shipping box to your address." It was the most amazing backpedal I've ever encountered from a company. Moo, Frank
You hear more XBox owners complaining about this stuff than PS2 users, even with an order of magnitude more PS2 consoles around. So by that quick measurement, it would seem the PS2 is doing a lot better durability wise.
I have my original PS2 from launch that has yet to have an issue.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Unfortunately, that model doesn't seem to actually work. The reason everything used to be well made and often sold with lifetime warranties - but rarely is now - is that people started buying the cheaper option no matter what.
People buy on price. So long as that persists, there's only a small market for quality products.
Would you really pay probably five times as much for a system you can expect to run vastly more reliably and run for, say, ten years? If so, would you, by the end of the second year why you didn't buy the cheap one?
I do agree that it's gone too far (6 month HDD warranties and 90 day warranties on products that cost several hundered - WTF?!) but usually where it makes sense you have the option of a decent warranty. You also, again where it's practical to make one, usually have the option of a better made product that will last longer.
So tell me, do you have enterprise class SCSI or SATA drives in your PC? Or did you buy the cheap 120GB PATA ones?
I'll put my money where my mouth is when I care. I just bought a very nice bike with a lifetime warranty on the frame - and don't ever expect to have to call in the warranty. It doesn't cost that much more to make a bike frame _much_ better, and it's worth the premium.
On the other hand, if someone told me SUN were making dual Opteron workstations with a lifetime warranty (and build quality such that SUN didn't expect it to be used much) so why don't I get one - it's "only" $10,000 - I'd laugh in their face. To me, my PC dying is acceptable compared to the price tradeoff I get in exchange for that risk - I have a functional brain, I keep backups and know how to recover quickly so it's not that big a deal.
I often wish it was possible to buy better quality products, and am increasingly irritated by the tendency of quality to equate with overpriced wank - to pay for quality, often you're forced to pay for stupid wank factor too. Sometimes you just can't seem to get quality (I've been through three kettles recently, and have just given up hope of finding one that doesn't suck). Still, indestructable and expensive isn't for every situation, much as crap with a warranty or cheap with no warranty are both also unsuitable for many situations.
because in Europe the standard for warranties is 1 year, be it a new PC, an xbox or a stereo. I know its still not a long time as far as fair use and build quality goes but it is still better than a meagre three months. It might be worth letting a leech of a lawyer get his claws into a fat paycheck if the US customer ends up an eventual winner.
Somewhat OT but you asked.
McDonalds kitchens are designed so a monkey could almost make your meal (the typical cook at McDonalds knows about as much about cooking as a monkey). All temeratures and timers are pre-set and all the food is prepared to the point that it just needs cooking ans assembly.
In the case of it's coffee makers, according to the facts they were fixed at 185 degrees farenheit and cannot be adjusted except by a technician. "Room Temperature" is 70 or 75 degrees so there is a LOT of room to manoeuvre. OH&S experts recommend hot water heaters be set no higher than 130F to avoid scalding, over 50 degrees cooler than McJava. IIRC if you go to you local Tim Hortons the coffee is quite hot too, but still no more than 150 to 160F.
So yeah...there is room temperature, hot and McF*cking Crazy (tm). The reason McDonalds does not do anything about it is because it would cost more to pay technicians to alter thousands of coffee machines than it does to settle a few hundred lawsuits (which typically involve covering medical bills, not millions). Same reason Ford sold exploding Pintos (because despite the publicity, they did not explode and kill/injure enough people to make it worth fixing).
...but come on! He is suing because his toy broke. Thats it. This is the world when even 12 year old kids have ambulance chasers, er, lawyers following them around and filing lawsuits whenever something happens that pisses them off.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
It's more like shooting a bazooka. With XBox2 coming out, the last thing MS will want is tons of people bitching about how their XBox was an unreliable piece of crap within a year.
Other things to consider:
a) Sony has similar issues with disc read errors (see previous comments) and will fix PS2's with this defect for free. Somebody must have pulled the guns on them for this to happen too
b) MS wants to sell games. Supposedly the consoles come at a loss. You aren't selling many games to somebody with a problem console, hence no profit.
c) If world gets around that Xboxes are prone to early failure, will people gamble with Xbox2?
As far as I am aware, if you buy something in the UK (not services, or some other things that don't count, but goods) then legally you can to take them back to where you bought them within one year and you have the right to a full refund or replacement.
If I'm right on this, why is there no such thing in the US?
Rik
Laptops have hard drives, they're mobile and quite often subject to shocks/jolts.
Mp3 players have hard-drives/microdrives, subject to even more shocks/jolts (especially when used by joggers etc).
It's not about the shocks and jolts, it's about the quality of the manufacturing. If you put a drive in an item excepted to get roughhoused a bit, you make the drive more shock-resistant.
GNAA freedom fighters attack mbonig into submission
Cakedrink KillsPics - Sinclair Broadcasting Correspondent
In the GNAA's continued effort to combat mindless idiocy, blogging, and bigoted oppression of gay nigger rights, GNAA member Penisbird has announced victory over mindless slashbot and blogger mbonig.
In true Hitlerian fashion, mbonig wanted to deny freedom speech to gay black men under the guise of his own nazi-esque values of censorship. "Gasgaynigs", mbonig was quoted as saying to a swooning crowd of neo-nazis ready for a golden shower of his drivel.
GNAA member Penisbird, who is considered of one of the most gifted and intelligent members, according to the GNAT or Gay Nigger Aptitude Test, excellently crafted his arguments against the nazi, as shown here, and was able to counter every point with concise and irrefutable facts. In the usual Slashdot hypocrisy, anyone who fights for the legitimate rights of the unpopular is considered a troll and this thread was no different.
The tragic defeat on Slashdot forced mbonig to retreat to his blog and admit that the GNAA's posts are free speech (unlike what he said earlier) while at the same time slandering Penisbird's impeccable character. Penisbird does not tolerate such insolence and proceeded to attack his wretched blog.
In the most skilled fashion, Penisbird proceeded to flood his blog as a form of legitimate protest. Like an relentless flood of nigger cocks, Mbonig (which is an intentional slur against niggers) tried to squelch the massive flood of protest posts by deleting hundreds of comments but could not keep up. His next step was to disable commenting for a couple of days. The very morning he restored comments and declared that by requiring logins, the attacks would cease. Wrong. Penisbird was on the attack and continued the assault.
After the morning offensive, mbonig quickly and embarrassingly disabled comments, declaring that "script kiddies" (the scripts in question consist of Microsoft Internet Explorer and the refresh button) do not deserve the same free speech rights he enjoys. However, Penisbird was victorious in that he caused mbonig to permanently disable comments. Penisbird vows to keep up the assault on his Slashdot posts and anywhere else he tries to oppress free speech rights online.
mbonig claims that he is not hiding who he is. Really? What is your last name? Where do you live? Oh, it seems that you are hiding who you are. Hypocrite.
About mbonig:
mbonig is a mindless Slashbot and blogger who constantly tries to oppress free speech online. He is a known neo-Nazi and supports the gassing of Gay Men of African Descent.
Mbonig is currently offering gmail invites, You may partake his invitation below:
https://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-b0ab39f1a8-51723
About GNAA:
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which
gathers GAY NIGGERS from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being GAY NIGGERS.
Are you GAY ?
Are you a NIGGER ?
Are you a GAY NIGGER ?
If you answered "Yes" to all of the above questions, then GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) might be exactly what you've been looking for!
Join GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) today, and enjoy all the benefits of being a full-time GNAA member.
GNAA (
How legal are these? I've heard in many circles that they're like many "rules" the come with purchases nowadays, and not worth the paper (or plastic) they're written on.
Are these "warrantee void if removed" labels really valid? If so, one would think that you can't install a new video card in your Dell unless you get Dell to do it (and I'm fairly sure that it's illegal for them to put you in a situation where you can only use them or their "trained technicians" for servicing)
Note: I was the one who posted the Anonymous message that you replied to. I finally got around to signing up for an account. Every place that I know of who sells an extended warranty, that warranty is 1 year from date of purchase(not from expiration of MS warranty). As an aside, if you purchased a system with one of these extended warranties, and then moved away from the store you bought it at, you aren't necessarily out of luck. The store I worked at near Detroit honored a warranty purchased in a Chicago-area store of the same chain. I can't speak for all chains, but it's worth asking...
It's no different than big tobacco, Microsoft a company known for inferiority in its product sacrificed for time to market and market share. It amazes a person goes out and buys a product from them, said product then brakes and that person is up in arms because the product lacks quality. My question is on what ground did they feel that they where going to get a quality product, Microsoft's past performance maybe? Anyway it is much like smokers suing big tobacco because the get lung cancer from smoking cigarettes, claiming that big evil tobacco did it to them. To me it is all hogwash as these companies have reputations for doing exactly what happened, don't get me wrong I am not an advocate for these companies and I believe that they are just getting what is coming to them but if you where not aware of what you are getting into when you deal with these companies then you may not be the swiftest boat on the water.
While I certainly have sympathy for this guy, I don't think a lawsuit is the answer here.
For starters, most "low-end" consumer electronics are not covered by what I would consider to be a long or extensive warranty, so this should come as no surprise to him that the warranty was already expired. Most of these devices are made to be disposable and/or have a fairly limited life span.
Most /.ers have read Bruce Schneier and know that he talks about trade-offs in security. Well, product cost vs. quality is a trade-off, too. Microsoft could probably sell me a $500 XBox that would have a 2 or 3 year warranty, but they know that I probably don't want to spend $500 for an XBox. Therefore, they decide to use lower-quality components in order to sell an XBox to me at a price I'm willing to pay. I might also add that since MS is selling the hardware at a loss, they have no incentive to use higher-quality components. This is also an area where extended warranties attempt to give consumers an option. If you pay me $X, I will ensure that you have a working XBox for the next X months/years. Depending upon the cost of the goods and your financial situation, an extended warranty may or may not be a good purchase, but I won't go into that here.
I don't think that this guy has a case against Microsoft because he was the person that made the trade-off that led him into this position (i.e. - not buying an extended warranty, not checking to see how long MS' warranty was before he chose not to buy the extended warranty, etc.). Being upset because something broke is understandable, but filing a lawsuit is simply not the answer - especially given the relatively low cost of an XBox when compared with many other pieces of home electronics. All he's going to accomplish by making this a class action lawsuit is enriching himself (possibly) and some lawyers - he's probably not going to do others in the class one bit of good.
To be blunt: expecting things to be cheap, always work, and be of high overall quality is just not realistic. There has to be a balance in the equation and for game consoles, price is what sells. The fact that he got burned this time around should be no surprise to anyone - himself included. He should just do what any other person would do: try to have it fixed, or just buy a new one. He's already wasted more than $150 of his time by getting a lawyer involved with this process.
Five Dolla Moddy-Moddy?
A few years ago the minimun warranty required by law was 6 months here in Germany. A while ago it has been EXTENDED to 2 years (yes, two!).
But I want the same money the lawyer gets. He can have my part of the settlement. I actually did have the exact same problem. So I just bought another XBox because I didn't want to wait for the repairs. I wouldn't mind getting my money back for the second XBox.
their expertise is in software, ofc their hardware will breakdown.
I wonder if Sony has anyone doing this to them. I'm on my 5th PS2 in 4 years. The first one died within a couple of months so was covered under waranty. The next one died over a year later so I had to buy the third one, but got the extended warranty this time so the next two were on Best Buy.
The first one just died but the others all had read errors. Oddly enough I've had the Xbox for over 2 years without a problem, but my buddy is having problems with his (read errors).
Is buying a console something of a crapshoot?
I thought it was funny... Who gives a shit about karma? I was just wondering why the moderator seemed to overreact.
Throughout this thread, there are numerous claims of XBOX and PS2 hardware failures, but not a single mention of the Gamecube. Is it just the Nintendo fanboyism (I am guilty of this, myself), or is the GCN simply a better quality product?
but a terrible idea in itself as flash media has a much shorter lifespan than disk. While it would be neat and fast, over the lifetime of your console you probably wouldn't want flash media that you couldn't replace. at least if your HD stopped working you could by a new one if need be.
They have your card information when you return something. If you prove to be too much of a cost, they'll simply *invite* you not to renew your membership ;).
;).
Other stores ban you perminantly when you dick around with returns. If at any point you cost more then you bring in, then they will get rid of you.
Moral of the story, don't return things (like my Aunt does) because you 'didn't like the look of it'
Now it can REALLY be called an EX-Box
:)
Glad I never bought one.
From reading more it seems like it might have about as much of a problem - but they also had a lawsuit already some time ago which I think is why you get the read error fixed for free. So, I was wrong about that... I know a couple of PS2 owners and I've never heard of problems from any of them.
I've always wondered though if most people with read errors keep the PS2's upright instead flat. I always keep my flat and think that may contribute to a longer life.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I recently purchased a refurbished Xbox from electronics boutique. When doing so the sales guy recommended that I get the six months warranty. I stated that I might want to get the 1 year warranty instead -- "no problem", he said, "return it in six months and say there was a problem. When you get the new one, you'll be able to purcase a new warranty, and basically be able to keep it under warranty forever."
RandomAndInteresting.comdefending the world from stupidity since 1979
I can see it now, in a few months we'll receive a letter letting us choose one of the following:
1) opt-out of the class action lawsuit, so we can file suit against Microsoft later.
2) doing nothing, which makes you part of the lawsuit and you forfeit your rights to file suit over Microsoft products, but you'll be entitled to a $1.20 rebate towards your next Microsoft purchase (lawyers will collect millions).
3) attend a public hearing about the lawsuit.
Class action lawsuits are stupid and the guy whining about his xbox not working doesn't realize he is being used by the lawyer for the lawyer's benefit and not his. He needs to just go to Walmart, spend $150 on a new XBox and return the broken one in the new one's packaging...problem solved!!
I agree with a lot stated above but another portion of the problem is that the people in the USA (me included) tend to just buy another when something breaks instead of complaining to the manufacturer. This is the reason we have OSHA dictating minimum specifications for Ladders and stuff like that. Its because someone would buy a ladder it would break in a week and just go out and buy another one instead of complain.
Luckly we are getting better at raising hell over bad quality from epinions.com to other review sites.
I was talking to a lawyer where I live in Maryland and he was saying that MD has a law stating that any product purchased in MD is required to work for its inteded purpose for 4 years or you can return it. I have not verified this anywhere but he said it has never been challenged in court. He said it is to cover things only if they can not be used for what they where designed so if a TV can't display images that is a problem but if it say just smelled like it was burning then that wouldn't be covered.
As much as I don't like the government getting involved I think that they need to step in and say taht products must at least last 1 year under normal use for residential purposes. Also should be added that if it a manufactures defect no matter when the issue comes up they must fix the problem. Of course this would cost corporations money but it would hopefully encourage better products.
He could have bought it at Best Buy, paid $20-$40 for a 2-year replacement plan, and already gotten his brand new replaced XBox. Instead, he pays hundereds in lawyer fees for something he might not win.
/ex-BB employee
If my laptop stopped working today, I could bring it into Best Buy and get it replaced with little hassle because I bought a service plan. Service plans have a consumer purpose, not just the main purpose of getting Best Buy filthy stinking rich.
I also note that no one is complaining about Gamecubes failing. Of course, with 500 posts, I'm browsing at +4, so take it as you will.
Iam from India,and I can tell you that no matter what "big" brand you buy here,no one even dreams of getting a replacement after purchase.It just isnt possible here.
You guys are so much better off , that you can return the product atleast upto a year.Not many countries will be having consumer protection anywhere near the current protection US offers.
yOu guys are better off.
Why does yahoo do this
would, like, totally suck if you were Godzilla. Even Achilles had his issues. The only question is whether or not this lawyer is a Shooter or a fucking poser.
By Allah, we'll find out...
This happened to me as well. I had a PS2 for just over a year. After extremely light usage (at most 20 times over the entire 1+ year), the PS2 would no longer read my PS2 games.
Sure enough, this was a common problem.
Sure enough, the warranty had expired.
Sure enough, Sony wanted $130+shipping to fix it.
Sure enough, Electronics Boutique would not take it back.
This was ridiculous! I had spent good money on something which died with hardly any use!
So, I went to EB and bought a new PS2. Using a sharp razor, I carefully removed the serial number from the new PS2 and put it on the broken PS2 (the serial number is recorded on the receipt). I repackaged the defective unit, brought it back to the store, and got my money back!
Now for you younger folk out there (under 18), you can do one better. Once your PS2/XBox dies, you are entitled to a full refund! In most states, entering into a contract with a minor makes the contract viodable by the party of the minor. Just walk in and tell them you are a minor and wish to void the contract. Provided you still have the receipt, the store is legally bound to take the product back and refund your money. Best of all, unlike what I did, this is perfectly legal! Hell, you can stomp on your system, smash it, take a crap on it, whatever.
...there were some cheap method of cleaning the CD-ROM lens, without resorting to legal action.
Cress, cress, lovely lovely cress
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
Let's face it. The Xbox was meant to be a laptop-sized server. You should only need the DVD drive one single time. After that, you can just ssh into the box and work your way from there.
The Xbox was mis-labeled and incorrectly marketed.
Just curious, for you store owners that do console repairs, what is the frequency of Gamecube repairs? I've beaten the hell out of mine, and it's never skipped a beat. Granted, I'm not putting burned media etc. in there, but it seems like pretty reliable hardware to me.
You can pick your nodes, and you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your friend's nodes
I had to return my XBOX already once because of disk read errors, support and the fix was great, but having to do it is a pain. To top it off a little more than a few months after getting the fix the read errors returned, how can MS skimp on one of the most important pieces of the system?
:)
Now I am stuck with the insert disc and cross fingers method of getting a game to work. Bah, back to PC Gaming
Same thing happened to me with my first XBox. It stopped reading about 80% of discs I put in it. I had to buy another XBox just to get my MechAsault fix. And now, 10 months later the same thing is happening. Sign me up!
I'm deffinatley all for this law suit. The problem that almost ALL of these XBOX's have is so maddening that it make's computers look like the gaming platform of choice for intelligent people. I'm a light gamer, i've had the Xbox since 2002, and probably only booted the machine 50-75 times. However none-the-less my Xbox has started having disk read errors on these brand new games as well, and it has problems starting up. I've got nearly 10 years out of my sega and even more out of my nintendo, but my supposedly far superior Xbox has quit after nearly 2 years of dust-free, cursory use.
I'm not one who's usually for these law suits, let alone a class action one. However I welcome this little tidbit, because even if i don't get my money back I want a discount on the Xbox 2 or the ability to get my original Xbox fixed. This has flimsy written all over it, ask yourself why thousands of Xbox's are failing at a specified time from being "purchased" or "made". Also ask yourself why it seems to be a software problem instead of a major hardware problem. Can anyone say "purposeful Xbox bug, from a company known for releasing bugs"?
Your atari 2600 or Nintendo didn't have a magnetic and mechanical hard drive, or a mechanical DVD Drive with an optical lense, did it?
Perhaps your Tandy has floppy drives, but unlss you use them, floppy drive *sometimes* last a long time. But the same could be said about a hard drive if you never plug it in.
Not saying that the Xbox shouldn't run longer then a year, but you can't compare a device with moving parts to a device with no moving parts.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
An xbox that costs my dignity is still a free xbox!
Support more choices in goverment-Vote 3rd party.
... is that the retailer is responsible for what they sell - after all it is the retailer that has the contract with the punter, not the manufacturer. The punter cannot sue the manufacturer because they have no contract with the manufacturer.
... refrain from selling crap products.
If the manufacturer chooses to offer some sort of warranty to either the retailer and/or the punter that's up to them; they don't have to, it's a free market.
If the retailer doesn't want to bear the costs of remedying crap products that they sell they have a very simple solution
Why do you have an XBox when you are reading Slashdot?
The Xbox console makes quite the effective bludgeon. (1) (2)
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
If you want a 1 year warranty, insist upon one before you buy. That's all this is. Personally, there are many device I don't wish to purchase a 1 year warranty on, and this system you describe would force me to pay for it whether I want to or not.
Do you really expect a $150 console to have top-notch DVD and HD drives?? When Microsoft speced the XBox, they probably carefully chose components with MTTFs such 99% of Xboxes will work for several years. In fact most retailers I speak with say that Xbox returns/failures are quite reasonable
Now you can fault them for only providing a 90-day warranty, but I'm curious to know how long the warrenty period is for competing products.
And you might fault them for putting a HD in the machine which typically has lower MTTFs than the rest of the system.
But come on people. The machine costs $150. If you can't stomach a 1-5% risk that it will die in the next couple years, then purchase those silly extended warranties.
Flextronics does all the manufacturing for Xboxes. They are a very reputatable manufacturer...just ask Cisco.
I've had the same problem before. Altough I called tech support and they fixed for free in around seven days. And I bought my xBox in 2001.
Why can't I get option b) buy a similar appliance for an extra $100 that is built with better QA and better components, and has the extra warranty 'built-in'? That way, I'm actually getting a better *product* for the extra money. I could buy something that I could expect to last 5 or 10 years instead of 1 or 2.
The problem with extended warranties is that, once they're up, you're still stuck with the same crappy hardware that's just as likely to die as it was when it was under warranty. And if it *doesn't* die in the extended warranty period, then you get *nothing* out of the deal. If you'd bought better hardware, that can't "run out." It'll always be better.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Here in sweden I pay the exact equal to the price of what an X-box would cost in the US. The difference being that all electronic devices have a mandatory year of warranty.
Does Microsoft make a loss of this?
(Hint : no)
AC
Have you ever drank coffee immediately after poured? It's certainly too hot for consumption as well, unless your coffee maker is broken.
To hot for comfort or too hot for safety?
Why do we lower the standards of safety when it comes to food and drink? It is common courtesy to WARN PEOPLE WHEN YOU SERVE THEM SOMETHING WHICH IS TOO HOT.
Have you never been told "watch yourself the plate is hot"? or words to that effect? I personally ALWAYS warn people when I'm handing them something which I believe is too hot.
McDonalds does not get off the hook, because it's employees are poorly trained.
We have a duty of care to people to whome we are selling products, to not hand them drinks which are so hot as to cause potentially fatal consequences if they drink them.
I think the little warning label on the cup is quite insufficient. If the coffee is still 20 degrees hotter than standard you should be warned verbally.
Quite frankly, I've spilled hot coffee on myself at home. On my groan as well. I didn't put the coffee between my legs, but it was early in the morning, I had just gotten out of bed and I was half-asleep. I misjudged how close I was sitting to my table and when I put my cup down, I missed the table, simply dropping the coffee right on my lap.
The result?
A lot of pain, and some superficial 1st degree burns. This was absolutely freshly brewed coffee. And that was coffee spilling on bare skin.
If this lady has simply spilled the coffee by accident and suffered 3rd degree burns, then would you find McDonalds liable? Who cares if she was holding the coffee in her lap? The issue is: Was the coffee dangerously and negligently or recklessly too hot for its intended purpose.
Why should anyone expect McDonalds coffee would be 20 degrees hotter than the industry standard?
If the McDonalds coffee was so hot as to cause 3rd degree burns and 7 days of hospitalization, it was TOO HOT.
Food is commonly served too hot for comfortable immediate consumption, but it is vary rarely served so hot that it would cause serious injury. And in those cases it is normal to recieve a warning from the food server.
Had the lady simply drank that coffee and suffered 3rd degree burns inside her body she would probably
have died.
Sure.. The lady accidentally spilled coffee on herself. So perhaps she should be liable for her cleaning bill. But spilling food on yourself should not result in a 7 day hospital stay.
And a company which sells millions of coffees daily should know better than to serve its coffee 20 degrees hotter than industry standard.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
This is why I quit trying to sell computers. I had a DBA from 97 to about 2000 or so by the name of Kick@ss Computers (everyone at PC Expo loved it). I sold maybe 2 machines to friends and made less than the late fees I got from my quarterly tax fillings being lost in the mail.
People, even good friends or family, would come to me and ask me what to buy. Then they'd go by some piece of crap from gateway, or worse some whitebox from a place that doesn't have a single employee that speaks non-broken english.
All because they wanted to save $150 on a $2000 system.
BTW, my computers including my laptop were all SCSI from 1992-2001, at which time I replaced the drives with IDE RAIDs on hardware controllers. And I have my really critical stuff mirrored to multiple machines. And backed up on a cd/dvd at least monthly, if not more often when I make a major update like a new program. And I keep multiple copies with friends in case the house burns down. I'm probably going to buy a 1GB flash card (I have about 550MB in source, documents, and old pictures) to keep in my wallet as a master copy for syncing and because flash is extremely durable (even if nailed to a tree).
Can you make a reliable PC? One of the few I built is still running. I built it in early summer 1998. Yes it was a SCSI machine, it had a lowend but extremely well supported tekram controller, a 7200rpm ultrastar, and an ultraplex. The first part to fail on it was the power supply in 2002, due to the house having bad power. I tried getting them on a UPS, but it didn't work. APC says the voltage must be dipping below 90 or over 130 for that to happen, which explains why the PS died. The rest of the machine works fine. It's a win98 machine that's had a broadband connection for 4 years. I suspect it's about due for a cleanout or replacement soon. I'll check it when I'm visiting this thanksgiving.
If you really want a reliable game console, buy 2 and save one in a closet or pick one up on ebay after yours dies. The old ones weren't necessarily more reliable. I went through 3 NES, 2 colecovisions, and 2 playstation 1s, but I'm still on my first xbox. And my first vectrex. =)
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
It's the buyer's fault for buying Micro$oft hardware. What reasonable person would expect it to work for any length of time? The company is not known for quality products, so why expect anything different?
frivolous to me. How much could you really sue them for without looking like a money hog? The price of the X-Box when you had purchased it? Sueing for any amount over 400 dollars would just make the guy look money hungry and striving for a reason.
Grievance? Hardly. His X-Box broke and I am sure it is repairable. How long is the warranty on one of these things? Or did he violate his warranty with one of the many many hacks for the X-Box and is now upset?
To me this seems very very very frivolous and I am surprised it made the front page news of slashdot.
Microsoft donated a X-Box to our faculty common room at my university. After a couple months of play, one of the controllers heated up and started smoking before breaking completely.
I've heard people complain about the Thomson DVD drives used in the Mexican-built Xboxes and praised the Samsung drives used in the Chinese-built Xboxes. Is there any way to tell where a particular Xbox was built of what specific parts are included prior to purchasing it? Is there any indicator on the packaging?
So, are we to assume that every defective piece of hardware is basis for legal action? I had a HP printer fail after two months. There have been engines in cars that fail after minimal use. Technology isn't going to work every single time - so why sue? If you are past your warranty with minimal use, tough - pay the money to get something else or buy the competition. I can't get mad at a car manufacturer because the tires blow, brakes fail or the engine craps out AFTER the warranty expires. I am using a used product. There are lemon laws in certain states that protect from happening on cars - should the same be done to technology products so lawsuits like these don't continue? If its within the warranty and YOU DID not void the warranty (ie modding), than I think the company will gladly refund or then you can sue...
string.Empty();
Isnt there a warranty on these things? The last consumer product i bought had at least a 1 year warranty on it..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Bike in this case == pushbike , not motorcycle. Sorry.
... manufacturing problems mostly if the frame is good. Lower quality frames skimp on materials and use cheaper construction techniques that can make them weaker than one would expect and more prone to failure.
Possibly language differences AU <> US<> UK ?
As for how it can fail
Having snapped my first bike's frame (the rear wheel attachment point fell off - a clean break in the metal on both sides - while accelerating across an intersection), I care about this stuff. Also, given the option I like to buy quality.
In addition to all this, a better frame tends to be lighter - which is always nice.
You boil water for pasta and accidentally spill it off all over you. Whom do you sue? The pasta company who requires boiling water to cook the pasta, Mother Nature for having water boil at 100 degres Celsius or...your own stupidity?
Your own stupidity. Reason being that (a) Pasta *normally* requires boiling water to cook anyway, and (b) the person who would have heated the water to boiling point would have been you (or someone you know) and not the company, so you can't claim you didn't know it was boiling hot.
Although (B) would be the main factor in your example, (A) has more relevance to the subject under discussion (McDonalds' extra-hot coffee).
More specifically; coffee can *reasonably* be expected to be hot on serving- possibly a bit *too* hot to drink for some people. But 'hot' is a relative term. The temperature McDonalds served their coffee at was far higher than anyone should reasonably expect 'hot' coffee to be.
Arguably, the woman was careless. Had the coffee been the expected temperature, she might still have been burned (but nowhere near as badly); in that situation, the outcome of the court case should have been in McDonalds' favor. This was not what had happened, however.
Cue lame example; if I buy a portable radio, and ignore the advice to install the AA Duracells the correct way round, would it be acceptable if the radio overheated, threw out blobs of molten plastic and metal, and burned the house down, if the manufacturer knew about this problem? After all, they printed clear advice not to install the batteries backwards.
If someone wants to take a risk, they should accept the consequences; but in the absence of further advice, it is reasonable to assume limits to the consequences of these actions. These assumptions should be based on social norms and/or past experience.
If McDonalds had put half-inch high warnings on fluorescent labels on every cup of coffee and had the woman sign a waver saying "This coffee is way more hot than normal and will cause severe burns if you spill it on yourself", she would have had fair warning. Alternately, if it had been the norm (for some reason) to serve coffee at stupidly high temperatures, then her case would have been severely weakened (at best).
However, neither of these situations apply in the McDonalds coffee lawsuit.
I don't like lawsuit culture. I don't have any unreasonable dislike for McDonalds (I eat there on average 2-3 times per month). But they were absolutely right to get slapped down in that case.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
True, Xbox does handle dynamic lighting well but it's graphics are as good as GameCube. Xbox hardware is good design but breaks since MS wants to charge for repair. It's another Windows tech support scam.
Bah. My post was modded "Flamebait"? Just because someone points out how the world actually works and you don't like it doesn't mean you have to get all pissy about it, and before you mod this one "Flamebait" too, read the rest of my post.
It's a fact. It's what happens in most manufacturing today. The margins on these products are so low due to competion and the forces of the market that all the components use to build them are supplied by the lowest bidders. The (usual) reason why the lowest bidders can bid so low is because they cut corners, not because their products and processes are so innovative that they lead to major cost cuts.
My XBox's WD hard drive might have been a rare lemon from the start (hey, it happens), but the DVD drives in the XBox might all be lemons.
The massive push for the cheapest possible products has forced quality not just downhill, but off a cliff. The point I wanted to relay in my parent post was this- Why should we be suprised if this practice finally caught up to and bit a company (and the consumer) in the ass? I don't think lawsuits are the way to fix the problem. The way to fix the problem is to remind consumers that if they were willing to pay a little more up front, their XBox's DVD drive might have a more durable motor or more reliable laser. But most would rather save the buck or two.
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
When I buy a cup of coffee, I expect a cup of hot coffee. I do not expect a cup of lava.
Part of the problem here is the use of the word 'hot' for both cases. Hot could mean (just) drinkable coffee, or it could mean something far hotter (as with the McDonalds example).
This allows people to use arguments along the lines of... "you should expect coffee to be hot".
Yeah, but not *that* hot....
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I'm not sure it's possible to make a modern console for US$300 that'll work like your old Atari.
... nfi.
Modern consoles are a _lot_ more complex, unfortunately. Some, like the xbox, also borrow from PC tech - including the "cheap and nasty" aspect.
Of course, I suppose the Atari was pretty cutting edge and complex for the time too, so perhaps I'm just talking hot air.
While it would be interesting to see an "Xbox Premium" - think good quality SCSI disk set to operate at lower RPMs, quality DVD-ROM, faster CPU running under spec to keep it cool and quiet, etc - I doubt many would buy it. Almost certainly not enough to cover the costs of making the two different variants.
Worse, MS couldn't form a viable market around a quality console - volume and market share are king, and if you want those you _must_ win on price.
As for PATA HDDs... you lucky bastard. I use SATA disks in a RAID array at work for our main storage array (fairly static "live" archival data, backed up). I had a 60% failure rate on the first batch. When I recently upgraded the array to 250GB disks, I again had a 60% failure rate. I lost three disks in the first two weeks. I've also had less than stellar results at home. I've since discovered that the first round was a bad batch of disks - the three with sequential serial no#s died, the other two were fine, and that batch was confirmed to be bad. The more recent round
All the disks were well cooled and carefully installed. All were confirmed to have serious media failures using S.M.A.R.T and mfgr disk tools.
With a failure rate like this, we'd be better off spending 4-5x as much to get something like WD Raptors. Of course, I'll probably use consumer SATA again next time because I won't be given the budget for anything else. Grr.
Agreed. That's exactly why I said that while I'll pay for quality in some things, computer equipment is not one of those things. Not for personal use, anyway - work is different because the cost of failure is more than "Bugger, off to the PC shop again tomorrow."
Costco recently had problems with some scooters they were selling. I think they may have been electric ones.
Parents were buying them, letting the kids beat the hell out of them for a year, then returning them for new ones or for cash when the kids' interest died.
I know they were planning to revise their return policy due to this, though maybe they just stopped carrying products prone to this sort of abuse...
He should have checked if there was an XBox version of NOSMOKE.EXE. It's a documented problem.
The same happened with my XBox no less than 4 months after I bought it. I called MS, assuming there was at least a 1-year warranty. I was advised that, no, in fact it was only a 90-day warranty (lame!). I asked if there was a repair service and was told no.
So I opened the XBox and cleaned the lens with a cotton swab and some alcohol. Works fine, cheaper than a lawsuit.
I had a similar problem and had purchased the Extended Warrenty Extortion. I sent it back to them and instead of fixing it, they responded with a letter saying it wasn't broken. It was a photocopy of a form letter; How's that for service?
I figured that it just wasn't worth my time to fight it. I'm sure lots of people do the same.
If this gets tried as a class action suit, I'll help. I'll dig up the letter and scan it in.
How many of you guys, like me, have a first-generation Super Nintendo that, while discolored, still plays games like new? This last generation of consoles seem to have rather short lifespans.
It's a perfect time for being wasted.
A perfect time to watch the stars.
- Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"
Have you ever actually tried to use that piece of paper called an extended warranty?
Firstly you have to remember NOT to push any buttons when you call the number... just hold for an operator, thus running the gauntlet of being diconnected as soon as said out-sourced non-english-speaking operator answers... if you try to push button for a department, you will be entered into a process of random selection, where you will be faced by options including disconnection after 31 minutes of waiting, deafening by overly loud classical music pumped out at around 14kbps, or, the above.
In the event that you actually do get through to someone, you will find that you are in the wrong department, and need to be transferred. If they can actually transfer you, refer yourself to waiting another 30 minutes only to be cut off. Once again, if you get through, to an even worse english speaker, you will be confronted with noise along the lines of "'Alloh, Bzzfsdjkh Tuchnekil Sport, Jzembah spukin"... you will spend 45 minutes just trying to get across to him that the piece of shit you bought doesn't work he will tell you either "hunforkumaneleh, junri brokdun ag rimpair not clivd buh rinty" (Unfortunately, general breakdowns and repair is not covered by your warranty), or will force you to go through a flow chart process he has in front of him. Only, you don't have what you're calling about in front of you, so you say "Let me go get it", or, if it's a computer "let me go check", and he disconnects your call as soon as you put the phone on the table.
You finally give up, when you realise that the cost of the above phonecall(s) is roughly the same price as a brand new whatever you bought+another extended warranty.
Aside from that, extended warranties are totally worth the £299 (2 years) or £399 (3 years) extra that you have to pay. Hell, if you take out the warranty, we'll throw in this digital camera (that isn't covered by the warranty and is designed to break after 367 days (+2 to account for the possibility of a leap year).)
This suit may seek to recover a percentage of Microsoft's profits from all XBox's sold -- which amounts to roughly zero. Well, good luck with that.
Just thought I'd chip in. After having way to many problems getting the XBox to read Fable, and wanting it to work perfectly for Halo 2, I got on the phone with tech support. They gave me various instructions...blah blah blah...Yes I already did that...blah blah blah...No that didn't work - Ok, we'll fix it. Just like that. They processed the repair, gave me an adress and a refernce number. Didn't cost me a dime past shipping it to someplace in Kentucky.
As a side note, I've had my Box for about two and a half years. I've never done a thing to mod/hack it(that's what my computer is for, no?). Recently it's had trouble playing my older discs, and within the last couple of months, it's stopped liking new discs as well.
Maybe everyone should stop yelling about the warranty length and just call the people - they are paid to fix problems. Most of the time.
There's no such thing as a free lunch.
Even if the warranty isn't a separate cost, it is part of the basis cost of the product. You're a fool if you think a manufacturer incurs a cost and doesn't pass it on to the customer.
More accurately, in Europe, you are FORCED to pay for your warranties.
I've never done it, but I know plenty of friends that have returned N64's they broke because of their own stupidity and routers that were killed by lightning by simply going to Best Buy, buying a new copy of the item, swapping the good one out for the one in the box, and returning that, even on the SAME DAY as purchase of the new one.
Someone should file a class-action suit against Sony about the PS2 because they are waaaaay worse than the Xbox in reliability. My friend's PS2 died after 6 months. Everyone I know with an Xbox has never had a problem while everyone with PS2 is crying crocodile tears.
Tell them you write for a games magazine and that you're pissed, it was true in my case. I didn't get it fixed free but it was $50 and no shipping instead of $100+. Also the first guy I talked to said they wouldn't deal so I hung up, called back and the next person helped me out. They're all about the bottom line and they lose money on every Xbox sold(hardware only) so if you can convince them that you can affect their bottom line it's in their interest to be customer centric.
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
This is something that many people are unaware of - the NZ Consumer Guarantee Act states that if a product is replaced with a new one, the reasonable period of life clause applies to the new one just as it did to the original product.
In other words, if I buy that DVD player, and it has a one year warranty, dies after 18 months, gets replaced with a new one, which then dies after another 18 months, I'm still entitled to another replacement (or refund), even though 36 months have elapsed since the original purchase.
This is quite different from what most manufacturer's warranty says - where the warranty applies to the original purchase date, and not to the date of replacement.
I always wondered about that optical mouse thing. A few years ago, when MS' version was relatively new, I bought one that stopped working pretty quickly. Went through their tech support process, and after trying a few simple steps (like "is it plugged in?") they just told me they'd send a new one, no questions asked. Best support I ever got from MS :). Interesting to hear that others had the same experience.
Rock over London, Rock on Chicago. Wheaties: Breakfast of Champions.
I know of a few electronics chains up here in Canada that offer extended warranties on game systems for this exact reason. The system comes with a 90 day warranty and you can up the warranty to 2 years with the extended warranty. Benefits of the extended warranty at some places include an over the counter exchange if the system goes bad in that time frame. I know I am glad i got it on my PS2 because I replaced it in the first 6 months.
i have a first gen 1.0 xbox referbished and this system has lasted 2 years and the dvd drive shows no sighn of dying out on me. and i got a 1 year warrenty couse it was a rebuild. but being my warrenty is over with i have no problem disassembling my xbox every year and cleaning it with a air compresser to blow the dust out. i also got a cd lens cleaner cd ment for a xbox i run once every 3 months. and my xbox even being a first gen rebuild runs perfctly. most peoples systems die from dirty lensis and lack of care dirty lens = drive working 3 times as hard to read a disk and evetly burning it out. my brother bought a new 1.3 xbox but he never took care of itand withen6 months the dvd drive burned out and he lives in a roach infestid aperment so it probly also had a infstation. so my point is if these people with dead systems never cleaned the drives with simple cd cleaner you can buy froma game shop for a $1.99 then whine why did there system die well they have no case. if its people like me who take very good care of there system and do perfentiv matence on them and it dies in under a year then they have a good case.
If anyone recalls the McDonalds lawsuits.
hmm...perhaps this is why so many brits buy electronics when they come visit the us (or visit canada and go shopping in the us)...'cause all I hear from them is how much cheaper electronics are in the states. (of note: I'm working at a circuit city about 10 miles from the canadian border and we get a lot of canadians and random foreigners buying toys here.) I think I prefer cheap to reliable...if all you want is a warranty then buy a service plan for cryin' out loud!
"If you want to require Microsoft to warranty their product for a "reasonable" timeframe then you have to be willing to pay more for your XBox."
Really? Then why do other people in countries with better "implied" warranties get to purchase the unit for the same price? Perhaps because it doesn't cost MS much, if anything?
"As much as I hate having an extended warranty shoved down my throat at a retail outlet, I do appreciate the fact that at least I have a choice."
My fundamental problem with extended warranties is this: I don't know the failure rate of the product I am buying. The manufacturer knows-this is how they set the warranty in part. The manufacturer isn't going to tell me (likely), or if they do tell me, I won't be able to compare rates between different manufacturers, or to trust that their rate is correct.
In other words, they are withholding important information needed to make an ACCURATE assessment of which product to buy. Which means, it is to their advantage. Equal information is rather important for capitalism to work properly. So I see no problem with legislating improved "implied" warranties. They are needed because "consumers" are being taking advantage of by manufacturers and there is nothing a "consumer" can realistically do about it.
"At least making the extended warranty a separate purchase gives the consumer the choice."
Yeah, kind of like asking someone in a dark cave if they would like a lighter after telling them it is potentially filled with explosive gas and dangerous pits....
What the fsck does this have to do with "Your Rights Online"?
A reason to buy an XBox!
Personally, I wouldn't - I'd just buy the cheap crap one if there was a choice, unless the price on the better one was sufficiently reasonable.
That was intended to be part of my point - some things are worth paying top dollar for, some aren't. Perhaps I failed to make said point - it was 4:00am when I posted that after all.
Now I realize a little multiplied by a lot equals a lot, but these were all little coupons for more of the offending party's products. And, again to be truthful, I never felt injured by either company so I wasn't really miffed about my lack of compensation.
But it all just proved to me that class actions might hurt the company (and I say "might" assuming everyone cashes their coupons in, which they won't) but they do not compensate the injured, which is the idea behind our civil system. Punishment is generally reserved for our criminal courts, compensation for our civil ones. The fact is, class action suits really don't benefit anyone.
Except maybe the lawyers. There. I said it.
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...
Actually NO don't buy a service plan. At least usually. Most 'service plans' (insurance is how thier treated as in some states) have a out for 'abuse' or 'improper use' in them. Guess what they call it if your product breaks.
Now if the 'service plan' is a 'no fault' (as in you are covered no matter how it broke) then weigh the other restrictions (who pays shipping, how much lee-way they have in replace/replace with simular/pay cash, ect) vs the cost and your best guess on how likely you are to need it.
Believe me if they have an out, the insurer will use it.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
I work for a retailer and the 90 day warranty is actually pretty sneaky. It is 90 days from the day it was manufactured, not sold.
if you're tech savy enough to test hardware, you'll get a good deal because most OEMs don't, and pass savings on to you. Plus, you get cheaper hardware thanks to all the marks buying the broken stuff and keeping it because they don't know any better.
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Screw the store. Microsoft fixed my harddrive after more than TWO years for just the cost of shipping the Xbox there and back, which overground only cost me around $25.
I'm going to sue Microsoft for all the times I ran Windows on other peoples machines and it crashed on me..
irc.enterthegame.com #linux
One year is pretty good for a crappily produced consumer box ... Think of what the kids and dogs do to it. Replacement? Eh. Get a life.
If you want to require Microsoft to warranty their product for a "reasonable" timeframe then you have to be willing to pay more for your XBox
That's insane. Customers expect a product to work propery for a reasonable amount of time. That's what they're paying for. I'm not buying a decorative black box for my living room.
So are you saying that if I go and buy a toaster and it works for a week and then stops then I'm out of luck if I didn't buy some stupid 'extended warranty'? I hope not because that would be asinine.
The only difference, and the only real debatable point here, is what is a 'reasonable amount of time' to expect the product to work. The 'extended warranty' is supposed to extend beyond that basic amount of time.
90 days (I think that's Microsoft's warranty period) is NOT a reasonable amount of time for a console. It should be at least 3 years.
Aw crap, ninjas!