Microsoft Sued Over Scratched Xbox 360 Discs 133
Xbm360 writes "Microsoft has been sued by Jorge Brouwer from the US who claims that Xbox 360s scratched his game discs, making them unusable. 'Some gamers speculate that moving the console between vertical and horizontal positions while a disc is spinning inside could cause the scratching. Microsoft warns against such actions with a sticker placed on new consoles, and Brouwer said in the lawsuit that Microsoft's customer service representatives asked him if he had tilted the console. He said he had not. The lawsuit also cites investigations of similar consumer complaints conducted by a Dutch television program, which found that one of nine consoles tested scratched a disc after five hours of play.'"
Disc Return? (Score:5, Insightful)
Cheers!
Back it up (Score:5, Insightful)
Why sue? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not first try demanding that MS replace the disc? The idea of suing over such a thing sounds kind of silly. Yeah, if they refuse to replace it, I guess you could try suing them. That certainly doesn't sound cheaper than buying a new disc. Why would you want to inflict a lawsuit on yourself? If it really pisses you off that bad, stop using the Xbox 360.
Re:Why sue? (Score:3, Insightful)
The main reason why I believe they are suing is due to the fact that the Xbox 360 is apparently improperly designed, thus this is not only a case about replacing the discs but providing the consumer with a properly functioning system.
If their product sucks that bad, why keep using it? Send it back and demand your money back, and use something that doesn't suck. This guy isn't going to get $5 million -- instead he's going to end up thousands of dollars in the hole. If he thinks he's going to send some kind of message, whether he actually wins or not, then he's a fruitcake. You'd have just about as much success teaching Satan some table manners.
Re:Disc Return? (Score:5, Insightful)
That argument doesn't hold water to me. We're talking about two very different things.
1. You scratch a car, it is still drivable. In fact, a scratch or even a dent or ding will not stop you from using the car as intended. A scratch on a DVD, however, can render it useless.
2. A car costs a lot of money. The material cost, labor cost, transportation cost are all extremely high. The cost of actually manufacturing a DVD is so low, it's trivial. I'm not talking about R&D for game design, package art, etc. Just the disk.
3. According to the game companies, we aren't buying a disk or a game. We're buying a license to use the ip contained on the disk. And, according to the license and associated DRM, there are several things we aren't allowed to do, like make backup copies, copy to a hard drive, whatever. Since we have already paid for a license, and are thus allowed to use the IP, why should we be required to pay the same premium again just for replacement media?
4. The material of a CD/DVD is flimsy. If content companies are serious about not wanting to allow backups and not offering free or at-cost replacement for damaged media, then they should make the media sturdy enough to not get damaged easily.
Re:Disc Return? (Score:3, Insightful)
* Crackdown(TM)
* Fuzion Frenzy 2
* Gears Of War®
* Halo® 2
* Kameo(TM): Elements of Power(TM)
* Ninety Nine Nights(TM)
* Perfect Dark Zero(TM)
* Project Gotham Racing® 3
* Viva Piñata(TM)
* Xbox Live® Arcade Unplugged Vol. 1
That's it, that's all of em. But what if I like Lost Planet? I'm sure the 360's library is MUCH larger than 10 titles
360 DVD drive has a faulty design... (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps Microsoft has absolutely no control over the issue insofar as it is entirely the fault of the drive manufacturer, so we may want to give MS a bit of slack on the issue. Still, MS has to be aware of the problem and you would think that they would insist that all drives be manufactured with bumper pads.
Re:MS backlash. (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdot also hates Sony for the various evil things they have done. The difference is while MS appears to be trying to please their consumers, Sony comes off as arrogant and uncaring. They are trying hard to turn that around, but they did a lot of damage already.
Of course, this is Slashdot and most people in the world don't really care about any of this. They just don't see any games that make them want to get a PS3. The Wii and 360 do have some good exclusive games and a cheaper price, thus they are selling better.
Re:Disc Return? (Score:3, Insightful)
And you think this is a reasoanble solution?
If the disk exchange was free, maybe you would have a point.
Re:Holly shit is that advice *really* necessary? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why sue? (Score:3, Insightful)
Class action lawsuits are great. Blaming the victim, as you seem to want to do, is lame.
I'm not blaming anybody. This guy is getting screwed by Microsoft -- why would I blame him? But when's the last time YOU sued because you bought a crappy product? Who the fuck does that? What MOST people do is stop buying from the crappy manufacturer and move on to something else.
To me this just seems like whining. "Whaa, I bought from Microsoft and their shit sucks!" Yeah well, who didn't know that?
We're not going to squish MS out of existence with $5 mill. lawsuits. We CAN crush them by refusing to buy their shit.
Re:360 DVD drive has a faulty design... (Score:3, Insightful)
They're guilty of shaving fractions of a cent here, fractions of a cent there on the BOM of the units. Those partial pennies add up when you're talking about a unit count starting at
Sony MS in this regard. amazing! (Score:4, Insightful)
I had my PS2 start leaving nasty scratch rings on game discs, making them unplayable. I called Sony customer service, and they said (in a nutshell) that if the PS2 is eating discs, they'll repair it for free (even if the machine is out of warranty) AND cut you a check for the damaged games (full retail, even years later, and even if they weren't Sony-published games!) if you send in the games with the console. This took place in Spring 2003, more than 2 years after I bought the PS2. Everything worked like they said: I had the console back in less than a week, and a check a few weeks later.
Then, this happened a SECOND time, about a year later (2004 sometime). Same response: send in the PS2 with the damaged games, free repair+check for damaged games, and it worked like a charm. Before I sent it in, I even told Sony that I just noticed whoever repaired the machine the first time had forgotten to put a new "warranty void if removed" sticker on the PS2 case, and they said it was no problem.
I just can't believe how helpful they were in repairing my out-of-warranty stuff, the second time of which didn't even have the "warranty void if removed" sticker. Just good service, minimal muss and fuss, and I didn't even have to lie to the rep to get service. Huzzah!
Getting a lot of scratched disks from Blockbuster (Score:2, Insightful)