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."

Why can't he just return it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the world really need another lawsuit?

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[David Horn]

Precisely - what's wrong with taking it back to the shop and asking for a new one? This is just someone out to try to make cash from MS and I don't think it should have been posted on Slashdot, as it will no doubt aid their cause.

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[McKinney83]

Do you think a store would take a product back after a year?
And give you a replacement?

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[MMaestro]

If you got the extended warranty, yes a store will take it back AND give you a replacement. (Though it'll be a 'refurbished' one.)

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[TheHonestTruth]

They offer extended warranties on console systems? And people actually pay for that?

Yup. I paid an extra $30 when I bought my PS2 (at launch) and got the 3 (2 maybe?) years extended warranty. One year, 2 months later, my PS2 died because something was wrong with the fan and it overheated or something. I took it back to EB, showed them my warranty, and they gave me a new one. Not a refurb, either. Brand new. Worked great ever since.

These days, my metric is: would I be willing to pay full price again after a

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[Neon Spiral Injector]

Nope. 90 days is all Microsoft gives you against defects.

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[Stuart Gibson]

So, the UK has some sensible consumer rights then? All goods purchased have a mandatory years warranty, and the agent has liability for the product up to six years, though that doesn't mean it's guaranteed for six years, but the retailer is deemed to be partly responsible for repair costs within this time. The chances of finding a retailer who will actually do anything this long after purchase are slim, but the year warranty will be honoured by everyone (by law).

Stuart

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[shepd]

A law like this in North America would cause warranties to default to zero. All products would be labelled "As Is" to reduce liability. Trust me on that. I'm a retailer myself and we get plenty of garbage products in from manufacturers that we know will welch on their warranty that get labelled like that by us as is (BIG fluorescent sticker, too). You'd think that would deter customers from buying them, but nooo... the customers demand them ($15 CDN power supplies, sub $180 CDN satellite receivers, etc, etc). I don't want to sell them, but I'm a store. I'm there to serve the public, and make a good wage doing that. So you sell what you're told (by customers) to sell.

The UK law ...

[Tim Ward]

... 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.

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 simp

ummm...?

[Ender Ryan]

This guy bought a product, and it failed after an absolutely unreasonable timeframe. And you're saying he should have _purchased_ (ie. PAID MORE MONEY!) to protect against such an occurance. So... In other words, it's not the manufacturers responsibility if the product doesn't work?

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.

Re: Warranties

[delphin42]

This guy bought a product, and it failed after an absolutely unreasonable timeframe. And you're saying he should have _purchased_ (ie. PAID MORE MONEY!) to protect against such an occurance. So... In other words, it's not the manufacturers responsibility if the product doesn't work?

Yes. There's a tradeoff between the cost of the product and the support burden on the manufacturer. 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.

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.

Re:ummm...?

[bluekanoodle]

Except that in this case, it seems many of the CD-roms drives on the original batch of of Xboxes were prone to premature failure. I know mine was. A class action suit would allow all owners, like myself, who experienced this failure to prove that this is more then just a few bad apples, but systematic of all the particular drives in those Xbox's and thus should be covered, warranty or not.

There is no reason that such a large portion of Xbox owners should experience the same component failure in a shor

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[budgenator]

well maybe he didn't want to submit to the Extended Warrenty Extortion. Personaly I feel if a product doesn't last a year, it was defective fom the git-go.

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[networkBoy]

I know of no store who will take an item back after the manufacturers warrenty expires (90 days in this case) without an extended warrenty having been purchased.

On a semi-related note,
The number one repair I see in my "shop" is assed up mod attempts, followed closely by dying DVD-rom drives. The reason? The drives never spin down once a game is inserted. if the game disk is out of round for any reason, even by a timy ammount the drive doesn't stand a chance.
-nB

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[Jucius Maximus]

"I know of no store who will take an item back after the manufacturers warrenty expires (90 days in this case) without an extended warrenty having been purchased."

Costco. They have the best return policy of any store I have ever visited. My cousin bought a camera at Costco in Canada, and then returned to the Caribbean and then moved to the UK. After the 1 year warranty was up, the camera started turning on and off all by itself, extending and retracting the lens, and doing all kinds of madness. Eventually visiting Canada again with the original receipt, we took it there and explained what was happening. Costco refunded the full price of the camera. No fuss. No muss. In cash.

I always try to get my electronics gear there because I know with absolute certainty that if the products acts up, I can get my money back, no questions asked.

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[Viceice]

I was told this by a lecturer where I'm studying.

The reason why Costco can do this is because it is a very high volume sales enviorment. Manufecturers fight to get their products displayed and sold at CostCo, so this gives CostCo an advantage.

It can set it's return policy and manufecturers who want their stuff displayed there will have to agree to it. So effectively all CostCo does is do soem paperwork and benefit from customer goodwill, and the cost of the returns and other liabilities are shifted to the manufecturers.

The terms slant very much in CostCo's favour, but the sheer volume of sales justify this to manufecturers.

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[Have Blue]

The DVD drive can spin down after a game is inserted; whether it is given enough time to depends on how the game uses it. I know this because when my first Xbox died, the manner of its death was that the DVD drive became incapable of spinning back up after it had spun down. Games which used the drive for periodic random access tended to freeze, games which used the HD as a cache could play an entire level and freeze between them (when it tried to cache the next one).

Also, the drive will spin down if you leave a DVD movie paused. My Xbox couldn't recover from that either.

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the Firestone tire recall...would you all be saying "Just use the tires even though they suck...when you crash and die, just return the tires for new ones". I thought not.

The difference here is that, when your XBox breaks down, it doesn't fucking kill you!

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[secolactico]

In fact, it does works. A teacher I had was always returning the shoes of all his sons to Nikes just before the warranty expired to get new ones

What did he teach? Ethics?

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[Red Alastor]

Learn to read. From your link :

I love hoaxes like this -- good, old-fashioned greed dressed up to look like altruism!

February 1998 saw the following e-mail show up in many an inbox:

Just a quick note to tell you about a program that Nike started to help make fields and playgrounds for the underprivileged from old tennis shoes.

All YOU have to do is send in your old tennis shoes (NO MATTER WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE) with a piece of paper that has your name and address on it, and Nike will send you a brand new

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[bluekanoodle]

You can buy replacement dvd drives for them on ebay for about $20 bucks, that's what I did. Microsoft still screwed up on cutting these costs, but at least he can resurrect it from the footrest graveyard.

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[spiritraveller]

This is just someone out to try to make cash from MS

Riiiiiiiiiight.

Let's see, $150 XBOX.

Best possible reward:
$150
-Attorney fees
-Court costs
= -thousands of dollars

The lawyers will make plenty of money... but the guy whose XBOX broke will be lucky if he gets a coupon for some games that still won't work in his defective XBOX.

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[sgant]

Really, I can't see the guy actually filing this...I'm sure it was his attorney that got ahold of him and saw "class action" written all over it and is just using this poor slob as a springboard.

Class action lawsuits are for attorneys, not clients.

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[EtherAlchemist]

Ya pays your money and ya takes your chances.

No, no you don't. That's the whole point to consumer protection laws. Companies that mass produce faulty products and sell them to the public should be held liable.

This isn't simply a case of one guy getting a bad system, a lot of people are experiencing the same kinds of failures which would seem to point to either faulty components, bad design or substandard manufacturing. What if it wasn't the drives? What if shitty wiring lead to these people being shocked? Or a poor quality power supply caught fire and burned down their houses? "Hey, whoa- it caught fire and ruined your life AFTER the 90 day warranty, sorry!"

If you really follow the "take your chances" line, then I envy you. Most people can not afford to throw away cash and hope whatever they buy holds up for more than 90 days, much less hope it's a benign failure.

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[mcc]

The lawyers will make plenty of money... but the guy whose XBOX broke will be lucky if he gets a coupon for some games that still won't work in his defective XBOX.

Sometimes class actions of this particular type the remediation is just that the machine gets fixed. I had an Aiwa stereo of one specific model that had a defect where the CD drive would consistently break after a couple of years. There was a class action, and the settlement was that everyone who bought this particular model got a coupon to go g

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the world really need another manufacturer producing bad goods?

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[TheRealMindChild]

You miss the point. You give them an inch, they will take a mile. Then a lightyear. Its less about getting money/new xbox and more about "quit selling garage"

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[Mojojojo Monkey Inc.]

But... I like my Microsoft Xgarage, it's the only place in my house big enough to store my Xbox.

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[micromoog]

Where do you store the controllers?

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[BlueCodeWarrior]

I use my bag of holding.

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[tenasius]

It's been over a year. The store is not liable, the manufacturer is.

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[gfxguy]

This is a lesson learned for the consumer - if consumers would just stop buying crappy products (and over paying for them), then companies would start making better products.

I know it's not going to happen, this is MS, but then at least YOU as a consumer have learned and make better decisions in the future.

What happens if this guy loses the case? Does he wash his hands of MS? NO! He runs out and buys a new Xbox anyway. And he will forever be annoyed by inferior products.

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[badriram]

No.... This happened to me to, barely a year after my XBOX started giving me the disc is dirty erorrs on new video games. What what pissed me offf the most was that there were a ton of people this happened to, and MS charges a 130$ to fix a problem that really is a hardware fault.

This is not one of those McDonalds Hot coffee lawsuits

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[CommieLib]

I had some problems with my XBox and a cleaning disc really helped. I had no idea that such a thing even existed for DVD players.

Having said that, XBox won't play a lot of the Netflix discs, presumably because of their wear and tear.

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[CGP314]

This is not one of those McDonalds Hot coffee lawsuits

Neither was the McDonalds hot coffee lawsuite [lawandhelp.com]


-Colin [colingregorypalmer.net]

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[OverlordQ]

Coffee is not supposed to cause 3rd Degree burns out of the coffee pot. That is 'unsafe temperatures' (tm)

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[OverlordQ]

Reports also indicate that McDonald's consistently keeps its coffee at 185 degrees, still approximately 20 degrees hotter than at other restaurants. Third degree burns occur at this temperature in just two to seven seconds, requiring skin grafting, debridement and whirlpool treatments that cost tens of thousands of dollars and result in permanent disfigurement, extreme pain and disability to the victims for many months, and in some cases, years.

The lady in the lawsuit put the coffee between her legs and drove off, thus spilling it.

a) She wasn't driving
B) it wasn't between her legs

Read [lectlaw.com]

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[mdfst13]

"B) it wasn't between her legs"

From your link: "Liebeck placed the cup between her knees and attempted to remove the plastic lid from the cup."

Please explain how one puts something between one's knees without putting it between one's legs. Remember that the knees are *part* of the legs.

The main reasons she won the suit were:

1. She had no reason to be aware that spilling McDonald's coffee would be so much more harmful to her than other coffee (it was roughly 40 degrees hotter than home brewed would have been and 30 degrees hotter than most other vendors).

2. McDonald's did (she wasn't the first to sue them).

3. McDonald's didn't do anything to decrease the danger, e.g.:

a) Make the coffee cooler (which McDonald's did post verdict).

b) Make it possible to add the creamer and sugar without removing the lid (i.e. make a safer lid).

c) Warn her that the coffee was much hotter than other coffee and would scald if spilled.

4. Finally, McDonald's made no attempt to negotiate with her. After all, she just wanted her medical (and later legal) bills paid. Instead, they let it go to a jury, who bent them over.

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[Politburo]

Pasta isn't the issue here. You don't drink the water you use to make pasta. Heaters aren't the issue here, you don't eat heaters. Spare me the anecdotes; they're the weakest argument in the world.

You're all missing the point of the McDonalds case. Coffee is designed to be consumed. Yes, it's a hot liquid, but it is still designed for human consumption. Liquid that can cause third degree burns within 5 seconds is not suitable for human consumption. This is what McDonalds was selling, and they were well aware of this. It was an unsafe product, with a history of being unsafe, and the corporation took no actions to correct it until the lawsuit.

Again, if this was so simple, why was the lawsuit successful?

It happened to me too...

[JojoLinkyBob]

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.

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[mephistus]

If you have one of the notorious Thompson drives you can spend on tenth ($13) of that $130 price tag on a replacement lens. We bought one a couple of weeks ago off Ebay, opened up the optical drive and removed the old lens and replaced it with our new piece. It's not any harder than piecing together your own rig or seating a CPU. And every self respecting geek has access to a soldering iron any way.

Since then it's worked great, even better than when we first got the Xbox. No skipping, it loads and reads qui

PS2 Class-action

[Liselle]

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 [ign.com] 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.

Re:PS2 Class-action

[destiney]

I took home 3 PS2s before getting one that worked. And even it is so ultra-sensitive to tiny amounts of household dust that I have to clean it 3 or 4 times a year for it to work.

I remember the old days with my Atari 2600. That thing took a beating and never stopped working.

Re:PS2 Class-action

[3terrabyte]

Except the joysticks.

Re:PS2 Class-action

[American AC in Paris]

I remember the old days with my Atari 2600. That thing took a beating and never stopped working.

You were lucky.

Mine had a habit of turning "Combat", "River Raid", and "Pitfall!" into "Vertical Lines and Shrill Tone". That game sucked.

...on the upside, this meant I got to play "Blow The Gunk Out of the Cartridge" for free. I also got to play "Whoa, Dizzy!" a lot.

Good times.

Re:PS2 Class-action

[Falrick]

That's funny. "Blow The Gunk Out of the Cartridge" is known as "Deposit Corrosive Agents On Metal Contacts" in my house.

Until recently, I was a devoted to cleaning my nintendo cartridge via a quick injection of air, err, blowing on the cartridges. Then I read a knowledge base article at Nintendo. It said that when you blow on the cartridge you're actually making the problem worse by coating with metal leads with fine particles of spit. Mmmm. Spit.

Makes sense when you think about it. The layer of spit may

Re:PS2 Class-action

[DroopyStonx]

Yep, and you can actually get a free PS2 out of this because they don't require that you send your old one in.

You just need to

1. call in and report the incident to Sony.
2. file a complaint with your state's Attorney General.

When Sony gets the complaint, they will look up your record to see that you did in fact call (and when you call, 99% of the time they'll ask you to send it in and will charge you, just decline).

They will ship your PS2.

Believe it or not, it's that easy... just like with the MS optica

What is the Warranty Period?

[stecoop]

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.

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 ;). 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.

Re:What is the Warranty Period?

[TheRealMindChild]

Maybe I am just being silly... but why would an Xbox need a TV tuner when its hooked up to a... TV. Im sure the TV works just fine with what its got

Re:What is the Warranty Period?

[iocat]

Xbox warranty is only 90 days. Suck0rz. But they do offer an extended two-year one, which you have to buy at the time of purchase I guess. I don't know. I never have had a problem with any hardware, even my 9/9/95 PSX. -Chris

Re:What is the Warranty Period?

[koreth]

There is a risk and either the company has to allocate money to a risk fund or acquire insurance to cover defective products.

Or change their manufacturing techniques to make the products less likely to break in the first two years. That's more the point of minimum-warranty laws. The cost will certainly affect the company's bottom line and will be reflected in prices, yes, but it's not a sure thing that the cost will exceed the cost that would have been paid by the company's customers if the law weren't th

representation?

[edsarkiss]

'...unreasonably, unconscionably, unusually and unexpectedly short amounts of time,'

is he being represented by Jackie Childs?

Re:representation?

[i_r_sensitive]

He'd have better luck with Jackie Chan...

Set up John Woo as the Judge... ...Now that's a legal batlle!

What about Sony?

[DaveCBio]

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.

Re:What about Sony?

[argent]

The failure rate for hard drives, particularly in a machine that's liely to be perched precariously on a coffee table in a den full of rowdy teenagers, is far higher than for optical drives. Microsoft should have made provision for replacing the drives.

This lawsuit

[macshune]

Is like shooting a .22 at Godzilla.

But in PR terms

[phorm]

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 p

Warranty?

[LEgregius]

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?

Re:Warranty?

[retro128]

The warranty is crap - Only 90 days. Obviously, the two biggest weak points on that thing are the HD and the DVD reader. I never understood why the decision was made to install a hard disk. I mean, it's a console - Kids play with it, and the thing is subject to a few bumps and drops. Not good for an HD. If you don't have the thing chipped and your HD fails you are basically screwed, unless you want to pay blood money for repair. If you're chipped you can just take that 10GB junker out and put in a $50 40GB drive.

As far as the DVD reader goes, there are sites on the net [llamma.com] that sell replacement lasers for them and have tutorials for repairing the drive. [llamma.com]

Re:Warranty?

[Hockney Twang]

Speaking of "kids play with it," a friend of mine, in a drunken fight, picked up his Xbox and used it to beat an offending drunkard into submission. Magically, the hard drive survived the savage encounter. In fact, the machine still works fine to this day, despite living in some of the most hostile conditions in which I've ever seen a computer placed.

Re:Warranty?

[retro128]

picked up his Xbox and used it to beat an offending drunkard into submission.

Thank God the Xbox is ok ;)

Dear XBOX User

[Letter]

Dear XBOX User,

That's what you get for using the mod-chip.

Letter

Re:Dear XBOX User

[thatshortkid]

Dear Letter, With a chipped XBox, you can replace [xbox-scene.com] a fried default drive. Not pretty, but neither are lawyers. XBOX User

Internal MS Memo

[gregarican]

Dammit I knew we shouldn't have picked up that lot of IBM Deathstar drives off eBay...

Warranty

[bobbis.u]

Surely X-Boxes are covered by at least a one year warranty? Couldn't this just be a warranty claim? Or is he going to claim "mental anguish" at the loss of his gaming time in the meantime?

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.

PS2 owners should follow suit...

[kasek]

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 t

Re:PS2 owners should follow suit...

[Cyph]

I believe there's been a class action suit against Sony for this exact reason already. They settled by giving free repairs for PS2s with DREs (disk read errors). Everyone I know has been able to get free repairs for DRE-related problems when their PS2s failed. You do have to pay for shipping, however.

Numbers?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Have 4 Xboxes...some drives are just crap

[FerretFrottage]

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).

At least his didn't catch fire!!

[gosand]

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.

unconscionably...?

[cymraeg]

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.

I had one of these drives..

[Recoil_42]

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..

Re:I had one of these drives..

[Recoil_42]

Look for an Xbox with the last two numbers of the serial number being 06. Those are made in China, and are usually Samsungs or Philips. 05s are good too, but those are mostly Philips (nothing wrong with philips at all, but samsungs are slightly better -- so an 06 is preferable, but don't shy away just because all the store has are 05's)

Personally, my Philips is an 05, and my Thomson is an 03 or 04, i can't remember.

Why not the same thing for Windows ME?

[toetagger1]

Sign me up!

Point taken XBOX owner

[SetupWeasel]

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.

XBOX DVD drive problems

[rufus t firefly]

I had a friend who bought an original XBOX (v1.0), and after using it for a few years found that the DVD drive would only sporadically read discs.

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 ...

give the people what they want

[Doc Ruby]

You can have it >Cheap, >Good, >Fast. Pick any two.

Re:give the people what they want

[rxmd]

You can have it >Cheap, >Good, >Fast. Pick any two.

Or >Sane, >Hot, >Smart, in other circumstances.

What do you expect?

[gone.fishing]

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?

Microsoft's Dirty (Disk) Policy

[AgentJose1]

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.

un

[Mr_Silver]

The defective XBox's stop working after minimal usage, after unreasonably, unconscionably, unusually and unexpectedly short amounts of time

I can't believe they missed out understandably, unashamadily, unauthorized, unavoidably and 614 other possibilities!

Bad wording

[hollismb]

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.

I know everyone hates MS...

[nwbvt]

...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.

UK law

[rikkus-x]

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

Re:why should there be?

[ymgve]

Here's the point: Over in Europe, we don't pay for our warranties.

MS isn't right ... they aren't wrong, either

[hipster_doofus]

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.

repeat after me

[dougnaka]

I will not file frivilous lawsuits regardless of the unfair amounts of cash I could get. I look down on those who perpetuate the deplorable state of the legal system in this country, especially the lawyers who gain the most from the abuse of this system. I will vote for change, recommend change, and work towards change for the betterment of the people. I understand that lawsuits are often the only recourse of an injustice and I support their use for these purposes. I do not support the use of lawsuits to pass my responsibilities onto others, and I accept full responsibility for my actions. I understand the inherit risks in daily life and that there are things that nobody is responsible for. I recognize that coffee is generally served hot, nobody can see around blind corners, complex medical procedures involve a certian risk, if I eat more calories than I burn I will gain weight, if I eat foods high in sugar/fat/cholesterol it is likely that I will suffer health consequences for this, if I smoke cigarettes I will increase my risk for cancer, and if I drink drano I will likely die.

Re:And if they win!

[ackthpt]

We might get a whole 18 dollars back. While the lawers get millions.

Not likely. Microsoft Home Entertainment Division will probably offer coupons for exchanges and a free game or something. Once they've got you hooked, you think they're going to let you get away?

Re:maybe....

[PDHoss]

Yeah, the hardware thing has been a disaster [microsoft.com].

Re:maybe....

[rseuhs]

AFAIK, the keyboards and mice are also doing losses (although small ones, not the billions that XBox is causing) and MS sees them as a means of getting customer recognicion - When they see the "Microsoft" logo everytimt they use the computer, they are more likely to buy software from them than from another vendor.

Re:Class action, huh?

[InfiniteWisdom]

So now you're hoping for a -1 off-topic?

Re:ok?

[PitaBred]

You're a well-trained little consumer, aren't you?
Gone are the days of actually making robust products, no, we'll give them warranties. Chances are that even if it does break, people won't hit companies up for the warranties, especially if they're limited time. It's a profit increasing mechanism.
Ever seen the movie Tommy Boy? Warranties on brake pads? A warranty does a fat lot of good if the brakes fail. Give me a well-built product any day, even my consumer electronics. Enough of this throw-away crap.

It doesn't work

[Craig Ringer]

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.

Re:ok?

[blixel]

yeah, MS wants you to buy another XBox so they lose another $50... what an evil corporation.

Are they still losing money on each console they sell? The cost of electronics constantly goes down. When consoles are designed, this fact is taken into consideration. Microsoft, Nintendo, or Sony may lose $X on the first million consoles they ship. Then they break even on the next million. Every console after that has an increasing profit margin.

But that really isn't even the point. They make money by selli

Warranties are NOT free

[rev063]

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

This is such a stupid statement, but I see it all the time. Warranty repairs are NOT free. The cost of supporting the warranty is already factored into the price you pay at purchase. And this doesn't even count the indirect costs of making a warranty claim: the time you are without the product for which you've paid, the time spend to ship it and fill in the forms, the cost of interim replacements, etc. etc.

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.

Think about it

[WebCowboy]

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.

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 rea

Palm

[nuggz]

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.

Re:NEWSFLASH

[Atomizer]

I'm too stupid to know what a suppost number is.

Re:The law and why he can sue ...

[Keeper]

You might want to try reading the act first.

"If you offer a 'limited' written warranty, the law allows you to include a provision that restricts the duration of implied warranties to the duration of your limited warranty. For example, if you offer a two-year limited warranty, you can limit implied warranties to two years."

Re:GCN failures?

[NullProg]

I've got three boys and three Nintendo systems here at the compound. Between the pulling on the controllers, stepping on the controllers and the three foot drop all the units have taken, I can honestly say Nintendo makes a quality product.

Hell, even all the game boys have survied the outside/stepping on/dropping/dog biting tests :)

It's funny about the three foot drop test though, when I went to purchase our game cube, the best buy shrill was really pestering me to look at the x-box. I told him fine, I'll