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."

NEWSFLASH

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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 the responsibility for it.

Not my fault he's slow

[Anonymous Coward]

"his XBox system stopped reading discs (games or otherwise) after less than one year of use"

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).

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

He gets my support

[Vampyre_Dark]

"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.

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.

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..

My experience

[thesandtiger]

My Xbox stopped reading discs a couple of months after I got it. Other Xboxen were able to read the discs, just mine had the error.

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.

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?

[Neon Spiral Injector]

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

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 ...

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: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.

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.

Just fix it yourself

[vrone]

Having helped many people replace a faulty DVD drive on the XBOX, I can say with confidence that anyone with $32 and a couple of torx screwdrivers can easily get their Xbox going again.

Step one: Purchase a new replacement drive on eBay from this guy [ebay.com]. (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.

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.

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: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?

[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?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it is. Good coffee is brewed at 195 to 205F (90-96 C) [edgecraft.com]

Only a lawyer could argue that freshly brewed coffee should not burn you.

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[jmcmunn]

Actually, when you return something the warranty on the new product (which is generally but not always refurbished) is usually only 90 days or the remaining duration of the original warranty, whichever is longer. So no perpetual warranties, unless every time the product breaks within 90 days.

In my opinion though, if a product fails all the time, it should be recalled or else the company should pay to replace them PROACTIVELY. 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.

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 quicker, and all around works. Of course you can also get replacement drives like the Samsung 616T if you can find them for less than that repair price as well ($60-$80).

Now if you don't mind, I have to get back to playing Rainbow Six 3. :)

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.

The law and why he can sue ...

[gp310ad]

The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act [ftc.gov] 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.

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.

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 selling games, X-Box live subscriptions, and peripherals. They will gladly trade a $50 loss on the sale of a new console to keep you buying games for the X-Box. And that is still less of a loss to them than it would be to repair your old product. By selling you a new console, at least they get some money back. By fixing your old one, it's 100% money lost.

I'm not suggesting that they are built to fail 1 day after the warranty expires. That's idiotic conspiratorial thinking. I believe it is in MS's best interest to sell you a console that works for at LEAST the life cycle of that generation of consoles, and preferably a few years beyond. During which time you *buy* lots of X-Box games, peripherals, and subscribe to X-Box Live.

But if it does fail after the warranty period, the manufacturer doesn't have much incentive to fix it. Maybe if you mailed photo copies that showed that you buy at least 10 games per month for the last year, and planned on buying 10 games per month for the next 3 years, that would provide them with enough incentive to fix/replace your console. But short of that, the manufacturer would prefer you just buy a new console. As said before, at least then they get some money back even if the consoles haven't hit an age of profit yet.

And lets not forget the whole concept of market share and units shipped. Those numbers are very important to manufacturers for selling advertising and getting other companies to back your product. Why fix thousands of broken consoles if you aren't legally obligated? Many of those people will undoubtedly buy another one which will increase the total number of units sold.

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?

[jd678]

Just checked this out. There is an EU directive which in part calls for harmonisation across the states with regards to consumer protection. Some states were lobbied by their consumer groups to take this to mean offering a 2 year warranty in line with other countries.

Others just made law what the directive required.

You can find the directive here:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/consumers/policy/ develop ments/guar/guar01_en.pdf

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[Stuart Gibson]

However, even if labelled "as is" it must still be "suitable for the purpose" and "as described" and the warranty will still be for a year. The only way around this is if you are a private seller of second hand goods, and even then the buyer has rights against the seller. Since the manufacturers are selling to the shops they are subject to the same laws.

The problem you get is customers who half know their rights and demand a new replacement three days before the warranty expires when the retailer has the option to refund, replace or repair, at THEIR descetion.

Stuart

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[RexCelestis]

1) Third degree burns are the least serious kind. They rarely require medical treatment.

Third degree burns are the most serious. First degree burns rarely require treatment.

Rex

Re:Numbers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. For the past five years I've run a small import/mod/repair shop. PS2 repairs have kept me in business for the past two years. 20 to 1 sounds about right, although I must admit I've started seeing more Xboxes in the past 3 or 4 months. It's probably only about 10 to 1 now.

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

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.

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?

[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?

[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.

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 simple solution ... refrain from selling crap products.

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 year for this without being majorly pissed? If the answer is no, then I get the warranty. I bought my Gamecube for $99 and didn't get the insurance because if it broke after a year, I'd be annoyed I'd pay another $100, but I'd cross that bridge if I came to it.

It's like any insurance. You hope you never need it, but you are glad you have it when you do.

-truth

Re:why should there be?

[ymgve]

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

my system never died

[luther349]

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.