Slashdot Mirror
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."
Xbox Burn your house down edition.
I love that the submitter's comments seems to imply that it is somehow more noble for consumers to take the responsibility for defective products on themselves, as opposed to holding the manufacturer accountable.
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.
If you aren't happy with the 360 why not just take it back? Why does everything have to resort to a law suit?
Conserve Oil, Recycle, Boycott Walmart
"...others have sought less litigious solutions."
Oh they have
come on people! you know that by suing microsoft for admitting mistakes, you are only going to encourage them to cover up future problems instead of addressing them!
Bill, is that you?
Consciousness is a myth. Trust me.
I think it is about time someone took a stand against companies pumping shit out to the customer before it is ready. Especially since it is obvious this was done to beat the Xmas season...
In addition, I don't like the way it was posted... "a Chicago man who was lucky enough to purchase an Xbox 360"... OH PLEASE!!!! "lucky enough" You make out to be some amazing thing... It's JUST a GAME BOX!!! Hello!!!
WoW!! When playing games is THAT important life must be truly sad.
"You smell that? Do you smell that?... litigation, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of litigation in the morning."
No matter where you go... there you are.
First iPod Nano then Xbox 360.
Am I seeing a commercial trend where hardware companies are increasing confident to roll out their products even if they are not thoroughly tested, simply because these companies know they have enough fanboys to buy anything they sell?
It's also interesting to see that these hardware companies are also software companies, who are regularly rolling out "beta" software to the public.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Unfortunately it is a class action lawsuit. The individual(s) will recieve a $1.25 check 10 years from now while the lawyers rack up $400/hr fees. Microsoft will issue a non-mea-culpa and continue life as usual, short $100 million, a drop in the bucket.
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
Is it a design defect if you're specifically told what the 'problem' is and how to avoid it?
FYI I'm not talking about chainsaws that can accidentally cut your face off, more like a car owners manual that says "keep your radiator topped off or else your engine will overheat." Or in this case, don't put your Xbox in certain places, or it will overheat.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
If Microsoft just recalls all of the power adapters (which seem to be most of the issue), and replaces them with a different design that allows airflow underneath, they can basically stop this lawsuit and any others that are bound to come up. The other option would be to provide a free plastic base to all XBox360 owners that would snap on the bottom of the system and raise it up an inch from the surface.
People who sue over this stuff are worse than companies that unknowingly release a faulty product. There are better resolutions than calling a lawyer, like returning the system, waiting on a recall, or hacking it up with a string.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
Have things really gotten to the point when everytime we don't like a product we sue the manufacturer? What happened to the days when if a product wasn't what we expected it to be we simply told our friends not to buy one and didn't buy from that manufacturer again? Are companies required to produce products that every single person in the world likes otherwise be victims of a lawsuit? Are standard defects valid causes for suits? We (well Slashdot population) all know that no process is 100% defect free, even a 6 sigma process still has 3.4 defects per million opportunities. Are we that litigious? How long before someone sues a restaurant because their steak was medium instead of medium rare?
This is absolutely insane.
The man is seeking unspecified damages, litigation expenses, and replacement or recall of all Xbox 360s.
Why is that 'The Man' always has to ruin it for us?
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.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
then try this on for size.
The RIAA takes you to court, pays outrageous legal fees (which they can afford), files for extensions, appeals and whatever until you run out of money and can no longer defend yourself.
Then you lose.
Now you have your legal fees, plus theirs!
Do you still think making the loser pay all legal fees is a good idea?
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
That's for a non-critical item. That's better service than we get on some computers here at work, and those are at least somewhat important. A console is entertainment only. If this was a life support device, yes lawsuit. If this was a critical server, maybe. A game console? Hell no. If the company is offering less than a week turn around on reparis, I'd say you have nothing to whine about. You can either accept that, or simply take the unit back (all units are less than 30 days old).
Talk about a lot of fuss over an entertainment device.
Its called the warranty of merchantability. It basicly means that when you buy something, its supposed to do what its claimed to do, without known hazardous side effects. The Xbox360 may fail this due to the overheating.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I think there are too many lawyers in the world.
Now, I know some are just plain defective. That'll happen when you ship hundreds of thousands. There might even be more defective units than would normally be expected. That could happen to, due to manufacturing difficulties.
1 24290
But a design defect? I just don't know if we're there.
I know it gets hot http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169465&cid=14
But it gets hot because it does so much. Its regular level of consumption is 160W. That's a lot, and it all turns into heat. Despite this, the Xbox 360 has a great cooling system. It really keeps itself cool.
But, like all devices, a cooling system just moves the heat somewhere else, in this case ouside the case. So if you put it in a confied area or block the vents, it will be unable to cool itself. There is NOTHING MS can do about this.
Perhaps you'd like Xbox to take less power (PS2 uses 50W). I can understand that. But it's not going to happen. PS3 will be the same. These super-capable game machines are pushing the limits of technology and so they use a lot of power and generate a lot of heat.
So, lawsuit aside, when you evaluate your problems with 360, make sure you're not expecting MS to defy the laws of thermodynamics.
BTW, I got together an EXECELLENT cooling system for my 360 in my stereo/video game cabinet now. I'm considering writing it up. Costs a fair bit, but instead of 116F inside there with the front panel cracked an inch, now it gets to 78F (67F ambient in the room) in there with the front panel completely closed. It's so much quieter now.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
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).
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
A friend of mine made a post on our IRL pals forum that I thought I'd share...
"""
Lets be fair here - i'm no fanboy, but even I have to admit its not just Microsoft.
Sega Genisis - Crashes games
SNES - at launch batteries were being drained faster from cartidge then supposed to (not sure what this means)
N64 - At launch wouldn't read some cartridges
PSOne - Wouldn't read some games, laser would lways fall out of alignment, and system would overheat
Dreamcast - Overheating
PS2 - Scratch the hell out of people's DVD Movies as well as some games, majority of systems at launch would overheat
XBox - Overheating problems on some systems
XBox 360 - CPU not functional, overheating, scratching disks
"""
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
It seems that ever since going to law school, all I see on Slashdot is people incorrectly claiming knowledge of the law. The parent is a good example.
The Second Restatement of Torts, Section 402A Special liability of seller of product for physical harm to user or consumer, states:
1)A seller of a product in a defective condition is liable if
a) the seller's business is to sell that product, and
b) it is expected to and does reach the consumer without modifications
2) Section 1 applies even though
a) the seller has exercised all reasonable care, and
b) the sure or consumer did not enter any contract with the seller.
This results in a situation of strict liability.
There is also an implied warranty of merchantability, as seen in Henningsen v. Bloomfield Motors, Inc. (NJ 1960, 671).
Further, this is not about to go away in the near future as the draft of the third restatement includes clause (see the section on products liability).
Microsoft sued over alleged Xbox 360 glitch [headline]
/., 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.
"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
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.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
The George Foreman Grill: XBox 360 Edition. Fraggin' and fryin' galore.
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
Yes, these lawsuits are stupid, but there are two things to consider here (speaking in general, I don't know the specifics of this case, but I can say that this person _deserves_ no more than a replacement Xbox and maybe $100 or a few free games to make up for missing out on the launch day fun. What they'll ask for/get is, I'm sure, another matter): firstly, if any of us can make a significant amount of money from doing very little work - why not? The system's broken anyway, others are exploiting it, so maybe we shouldn't be so hard on these people for joining in. If someone told you that you could have $1000000 for nothing except exploiting a system that's getting fucked over anyway, would you really be that bad for taking it?
That leads to my second point: whose fault is it that the legal and social structures are fucked (i.e. a judge doesn't throw out ridiculous cases _and_ a jury sides with these people)? Could it be the big evil corporations that tell people what to think? I honestly don't know, but the likes of Sony, MS, McDs etc. who generally get hit by these lawsuits are all partially responsible for the state of the 'developed' world anyway.
Maybe I'm feeling extra cynical today, but it just looks to me like the system's screwed anyway, so just make the most of it. Corporations are the epitome of selfishness, and many people are going the same way. Perhaps it's time to give up and go with the flow, because I'm losing sight of any other way to 'win' here.