Microsoft Sued Over Fall Update Issues 55
Gamespot is reporting that a rumour that's been floating around has, for once, turned out to be true. Microsoft has been sued for breach of contract and negligence in connection to the Xbox Live Fall Update. From the article: " Stating that the affected consumers number in 'at least the thousands,' the suit contends that Microsoft is refusing to repair or replace the broken systems unless the users pay 'up to $140' to ship it back to the company. The plaintiff is demanding that Microsoft pay at least $5 million in damages for breach of contract to those affected by the Fall Update problems, and an additional amount of at least $5 million in damages for an unfair or deceptive act under the CPA. Should Microsoft argue that it had no agreement to breach with the affected users, then the plaintiff contends Microsoft was negligent, and should be made to pay at least $5 million in damages." It should be noted that Microsoft has responded by saying it has offered to completely cover the cost of systems affected by the update, including shipping.
Missed opportunity... (Score:1)
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Yes, it was an absolute bummer that I had two problems.
BUT- both times the process was easy and quick. And the second time I had a problem, my Xbox was out of warranty. But they still covered the problem for free. Did not cost me a penny, including shipping.
Microsoft has said they would cover these bricked 360s for free, and my experience is that they do a good job on that.
Only modders? (Score:2, Interesting)
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And WGA only hits pirated Windows. I also have some ocean front property in Arizona if you're interested.
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California finally fell off?!? Why didn't I hear about this?
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Also, MS should of pulled the update as soon as it was apparent it was killing 360s, but they didn't and it affected a lot more units because of that.
I managed to get £50 worth of GAME vouchers to compensate for the update killing my 360, but it was the 3rd time my 360 needed replacing due to shoddy hardware/software.
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Well, that is a load of crap. If you buy something, you own it and you can do whatever you want with it. Voiding the warranty for cracking open the box, or modifying the bios, or making it self destruct if you use it sounds quite deceptive to me. Unless they tell you that you are "just renting it" or some crap, then they are being dickheads and you shouldn't give them money. Well, time has proven them to be dickheads, so don't be stupid and give them money. A manufacturer should only be allowed to refuse th
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This update bricked it.
They want YOU to pay the shipping to send it back for the problem that THEY caused. They only pay the shipping to send it back to you. Then you're without it for 2 weeks.
Dell pays for both trips when returning their monitors. They send the brand new working monitor immediately via express mail too.
Probably not a case (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Probably not a case (Score:4, Informative)
I don't mean to imply that this is a valid lawsuit, but a good counter example is car seat belts. Lets imagine that CAR COMPANY A produces a car that it turns out has faulty seat belts. Even if the car company issues a recall and offers to completely pay all costs of repairs (which it no doubt would), it can still possibly be sued if it can be shown that the error was the result of negligence and not of innocent or unforseeable error (or even more seriously, if it can be shown that it KNEW about the problem and didnt act to fix it).
Again, I dont think this applies to this case, and i doubt this case has an ounce of merit, but Im just saying that Microsofts willingness to replace and pay for shipping does NOT completely shield them from a lawsuit, if the lawsuit was valid
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If not I maintain a list of all know Xbox 360 error codes [xbox-scene.com] (including instructions on how to extract the secondary error code). AFAIK it's the most comprehensive list available online, though it's still in it's infancy.
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Cost cutting a little out of control? (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft claims that the machine cannot be moved while on with a disk in it or it will do this to the disks. He claims he didn't move it. My feeling is there's no excuse for the machine doing that regardless. Skipping, rebooting midgame, hell even erasing your saved games...are all understandable or acceptable. But, a machine that destroys your $60 game disks, that can't be easily backed up, because you bumped into the entertainment center is unacceptable IMO. Its definately not a terrible machine power wise, but what did they save? $3 or something putting the piece of junk dvd player in the machine?
And then you have the reports of updates bricking the consoles and it doesn't really instill a lot of confidence in the system. And what is with the 90 day warentees? As I understand it this is becoming industry standard for consoles. I know the console market is pretty competitive, but even PC parts which are often installed by people with limited expertise and are very price competitive still all offer a 1 year warentee at least. I guess when you're selling systems at a loss the urge to cut costs wherever you can is pretty strong. But as a consumer, when I see the company not even willing to stand behind the product for a year I start to think there's something fishy going on.
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Not that we disbelieve your BIL, but I can't tell you the number of times I've heard this. "My browser won't load some web site." "It needs cookies, are you running software that blocks 'em?" "No." A day later, "Oh, it turns out my dad put blocking software on the computer." You don't say. See also approximately 600 episodes of Shark Tank.
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You hit the nail on the head though. Your suggestions make sense, but ultimately
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And the physics of angular momentum is even less new.
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Disc Resurfacing (Score:2)
Guess I should have dug a little deeper before posting. Thanks Phisbut!
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DVD players have been around for a while indeed, but how many times have you moved your DVD player (either the one under your TV or the one in your computer) from a horizontal position to a vertical one, while a movie was playing at the same time? I bet those devices would also damage the disc the same way the xbox does.
When the disk starts spinning at high speed insid
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It's a conspiracy man! The sales corporation own the console makers.
But seriously - How much does Best Buy and Circuit City and the myriad other sellers make on extended warranties? I have bought a few in the past and never used them. It's like I gave Best Buy free money.
Free Money (Score:2)
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Re:Cost cutting a little out of control? (Score:4, Informative)
My Wii came with a 1-year warranty, and by registering it online, Nintendo extends that warranty by an extra 90 days, so I got a 15 months warranty on the console.
Maybe it's because Nintendo is quite confident in the quality of its hardware, or they simply have a better customer service, or both. I don't know about the warranties of the other systems.
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In my experience, Nintendo hardware has been quite solid. Had a gamecube (sold) and have a DS. You can let them collect dust, even beat on the things and they still work fine.
Sony's (PS1, a CD player) has not--the PS was iffy reading disks, often claiming there was no disc on boot when there was one. The CD player's (I forget what it is called) center part which holds the cd in place would come out with the CD when I exchanged discs. Those lasted only a few years--dealing with those problems. I would've b
License? (Score:1)
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But the problem with your statement is this: Once you've modded your Xbox, you've broken your
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That is all true as long as th
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Has MS admitted to killing chipped xboxes? well? (Score:3, Informative)
2. any chip mods done, are virtually undetectable, because the new rom has a shadow original rom running too, so I dont know
how MS plans to detect that, unless they try to detect the presense of a larger address space or different IO reads to the rom.
3. This could be just a stupid timing bug, not the first time MS has made software errors, but yeah they should have a fail safe
system, and NOT kill xbox, I thought they would do the same as the or
Problems (Score:2, Informative)
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It was not modded.
They want YOU to pay the shipping to repair the problem that THEY created with the patch.
Luckily, after trying microsoft I returned it to walmart. They just check the contents and then issue a full credit to my card including tax.
My roommate had also bought an xbox360 just 2 months ago, he too had to return it within 2 weeks.
Returning my Dell monitor had them send me a brand new monitor via express delivery
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