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."

Xbox 2 probably will use flash storage

[Samir Gupta]

Crashing is probably the precise reason why MS is rumored to be not having a HD in Xbox2/Xenon -- putting a hard drive in a console used by kids and likely to be picked up, moved, jolted, dropped, etc. is a bad idea.

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?

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?

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.

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.

Re:Why can't he just return it?

[mOoZik]

So what? Tough luck. If it costs that much, you either fix it or STFU about it. If that many units were actually defective, a suit would already have been brought, but this is a very small percentage of the overall users of the product. This is just another anti-MS person trying to cash in and bring the company down. *rolls eyes*

Re:PS2 Class-action

[LanMan04]

I've had my 1st Generation PS2 repaired twice (by Sony via mail, for free). The neat thing is that if any of your games are damaged by the PS2 (I got some beautiful circular scratches ground into the discs, making them very unplayable even on OK PS2s), they cut you a check for the ORIGINAL retail price of all the games. Pretty good customer service, or fear of being sued again.

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]

NES

[o0congee0o]

Anybody remember the bad contacts on the old front loaded NES. The famicom didn't have that problem. Stupid design. Can I sue for all the times I injured myself by jamming the cart in with excessive force? Because it only works when you use excessive force. but you gotta give it to the NES, it still works after all the abuse I unleased upon it.

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 optical mice. You can buy an Intellimouse Explorer and the very next day call them and say it's broken. They'll just up and send ya a new one without question.

Re:ok?

[matth1jd]

Yes all hardware does stop at sometime for some people but from what I know this is a fairly common problem.

Why is there a story on /.? Probably because it involves Microsoft.

I'm about 95% sure that the XBox warranty is 90 days long. You pay for a extra for a long term warranty.

I believe that there is reason to expect hardware to last longer than a year, after all most computers come with warranties that last at least a year, and an xbox is essentially a computer running a stripped down version of the Windows XP Kernel.

Do I think there should be a lawsuit over this, eh maybe not, but it'll be interesting to watch!

--JM

Re:At least his didn't catch fire!!

[Nitwits]

You might contact UL. UL tends to be VERY interested in household products that show signs of fire. At the very least, it will probably get you a new Xbox. It might get an Xbox recall.

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?

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?

[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.

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 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: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 temporarily make the electrons flow, but a combination of moisture, electricity and metal leads to corrosion. Suddenly Mario explodes into hundreds of tiny blocks on the screen.

I recently pulled out my old NES, which I hadn't played since probably '94. None of my games worked, so I sat down and cleaned the contacts using a cleaning kit that I bought back in the day. I then cleaned all of my games. You've got to clean both or else there's no point. The result? My Nintendo works better now than I can ever remember it working!

Rock on cleaning agents. Now usefull for more than just sniffing punks.

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 pair back FREE OF COST!!!

The tennis shoes you send DO NOT have to be Nike. Just as long as they are tennis shoes. It really is a worthwhile project, and it's helping a lot of young kids. Here is the address:

Nike Recycling Center
c/o Reuse-A-Shoe
26755 SW 95th Street
Wilsonville, OR 97070

They don't take "old" shoes, only those under the warranty. They don't take shoes from other vendors and they don't recycle them.

But like all urban legends, it started with a bit of truth : Nike have a too permissive warranty policy.

Seems...

[Fringex]

frivolous to me. How much could you really sue them for without looking like a money hog? The price of the X-Box when you had purchased it? Sueing for any amount over 400 dollars would just make the guy look money hungry and striving for a reason.

Grievance? Hardly. His X-Box broke and I am sure it is repairable. How long is the warranty on one of these things? Or did he violate his warranty with one of the many many hacks for the X-Box and is now upset?

To me this seems very very very frivolous and I am surprised it made the front page news of slashdot.

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 buy it if you can drop it three feet and it still works. Needless to say, he would not/didn't do it :)

Enjoy,

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