Microsoft Sued Over Alleged Xbox 360 Defects

richdun writes "Reuters is reporting that a Chicago man who was lucky enough to purchase an Xbox 360 has filed suit against Microsoft over the overheating and crashing some users have experienced. The man is seeking unspecified damages, litigation expenses, and replacement or recall of all Xbox 360s. While more suits or a class-action is probably on the way, others have sought less litigious solutions."

Comments

This is one thing I don't like about this country

[the_humeister]

Anyone can sue anyone else no matter how stupid it is, and there won't be any repurcussions except more money for the lawyers. What we really need is some system in place where the loser pays to further discourage stupid lawsuits.

I think there's some sci-fi book where the loser and his lawyer dies. That might work too, but I don't think most people would go for that.

Oh please

[radish]

You get bad units, it happens with any products. Microsoft are replacing all units which exhibit any fault, for example overheating. They overnight you an empty box, you put the defective unit in and overnight it back, then they overnight you a new unit. Total time elapsed: less than a week, total cost to you: zero dollars. That's better than most return policies in my experience. So far MS have been saying that the return rate is around 3%, which is below industry average. So again - what's the problem here? A company produced a product which has lower than average failure rates and is happily and rapidly replacing any defective units for free.

This guy doesn't wany justice, he wants free money. He's a greedy ass and should be brought to book for encouraging this insane litagation culture to feed his own pocket.

And the last thing I want is a recall - mine is working perfectly.

Liability and suing

[aepervius]

Actually as far as I understand you can be liable for a product you manifacture & sell if either 1) it has knowingly a default 2) it does not respect the local norm/standard 3) it does not work as described in the manual/package (please notice that I do not say it does not work as adverstised!). Liability can involve depending on the country from replacement of the unit, partial or complete refund and in the most extreme case, recall or even severe fine and damage (mostly in case of default endangering a life).

Now this US situation is this : you can sue ANYBODY. Naturally a judge might throw your claim out, or even kick you out of the court for contempt, your claim might not even go beyond a first hearing or whatnot. Suing does not guarantee you have a claim, it only means you THINK you have a claim. See for example each year the tax protester suing the federal governement (NONE get beyond the judge throwing the claim out or even laughing and in one documented case calling the claimant a fool). So in that case, since a solution already exists (replacement of the unit) then the lawsuit won't probably go very far. That is, unless he can prove 1) that he can't get a replacement or a refund from MS/reseller or/and 2) the overheating unit involve a life risk and/or already damaged a person and/or possessions(items).

Glitch or Design Flaw???

[FerretFrottage]

Microsoft sued over alleged Xbox 360 glitch [headline]
"A Chicago man who bought Microsoft Corp.'s new
Xbox 360 has sued the world's largest software maker, saying the new video game console has a design flaw that causes it to overheat and freeze up...."

My car has a glitch/design flaw as well. If I start it and leave the keys in the ignition and then get out of my car and lock the doors, I can't get back into my car without modding my car's window or calling in "experts" (legally registered tax paying business, or the type registered by the sheriff's department).

I have a 360 and it does run hot....they need to have proper ventilation, probably more so than any other computer or A/V component I've ever owned. I'm not sure how well the manual states this as I never read them (hey this is /., who reads manuals), but if you take a 360 a stuff in a location that doesn't have good air flow then I'm not surprised the unit is crashing. FWIW, I have mine in an open AV rack that has plenty of ventilation and I've had the thing on for over straight hours at one point and it didn't crash on me. Not all that time was playing games--the last 2+ hours of was playing it and MCE 2005, but when you can justify the purchase to the wife by streaming HD pr0n onto the HDTV, it's worth the time.

Now was it wise of MS/partners to design it this way (to run as hot as it does and require so much ventilation)? Who knows what their design specs say. But just image taking your tower PC, shrinking by a factor of 4-5 times and then cranking up the CPU/GPU full throttle and think about how much heat would be generated. I'm not saying it's an excuse, but owners of some of the new high powered high tech toys may need to be educated on how well this ptoys work as a space heater.