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Gadgets Microsoft Sued for Bricking Xbox 360s
Marcus Yam (Blog) - December 11, 2006 12:42 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 78 comment(s) - last by cochy.. on Dec 16 at 4:05 PM
A class action lawsuit seeks $5 million and free repairs

When Microsoft released the Fall Dashboard Update for the Xbox 360, users expected 1080p, HD DVD, WMA streaming and more. What no one expected was that the update crashed consoles, rendering them mostly useless. Microsoft quickly acknowledged and fixed the problem, and advised those who had bricked consoles to contact Xbox tech support for further instruction.

More than a month after Microsoft’s dangerous Dashboard, a Californian man is leading a class action lawsuit against Microsoft after his own Xbox 360 was disabled by the update, according to Ars Technica’s report.

Apparently, after contacting Xbox tech support following the faulty update, Kevin Ray was refused repair of his console unless he paid the usual $140 charge that Microsoft requires for servicing/exchanging a machine. The class action suit filed in a Washington federal court seeks over $5 million in damages in addition to free repair for all Xbox 360 fallen victim to the Fall Dashboard Update.

Microsoft only warranties Xbox 360s for 90 days following purchase, but users have the option to purchase extended warranty directly for an added fee. Failure rates have been abnormally high, especially among launch window consoles, that Microsoft has agreed to repair all machines manufactured in 2005 free of charge, and issue a refund for those who already paid for repairs of launch units.

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By ATC on 12/11/2006 6:10:30 AM , Rating: 1
WTF is MSFT doing with the 360? I read so many threads on a number of Xbox forums of users being on their 5th, 6th ....etc....360!

And now, they're finding other ways to kill the console - through updates.

Maybe the numbers I see are exaggerated but I got to say it seems Sony has learnt one important lesson from the 360 launch and that is to make a quiet and reliable console at any cost, which the PS3 seems to be right now.




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By ThisSpaceForRent on 12/11/2006 6:25:16 AM , Rating: 4
The other thing to consider is you're not going to hear from the majority of the user base that has no issues either.

As far as the class action lawsuit is concerned. I think they might have a valid case. I know usually any sort of software update comes with the caveat that you assume all responsiblity for damage that may result to your system. I'm don't know alot about the updates for the XBox, but I'm assuming that they might be something required to use all of the services on XBox Live. If this were the case, i.e. software needed to use all the services, there might exist an implied warranty. Obviously you can't tell people that they have to upgrade their software to use your service, damage their system, then turn around go, yup them's the breaks. I am making a broad assumption here, if anyone knows, one way or the other, please correct, or confirm this for me.


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By Aesir on 12/11/2006 1:02:39 PM , Rating: 2
My dad is on his 3rd 360... The first locked at random times(and it wasn't even a release model, he bought it Q2 '06), the second had vertical sync / "tearing" issues, and so far the 3rd has been just fine (he got all-new replacements, through a store warranty).

He's also on his 3rd Xbox, replaced through Microsoft's "repair" system (probably the world's most incompentent group of repair men), and its showing signs that #4 will soon be needed.

I think optimistically, the quality controls are terrible on these things. Realistically, its positively criminal and MS needs their pants sued off (this coming from somone who has owned a gen 1 PS2 and a gen 1 Xbox, both of which have worked awesome compared to the damn 360).


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By The Sword 88 on 12/11/06, Rating: 0
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By Tsuwamono on 12/14/2006 5:39:51 PM , Rating: 2
Examples:

1. My friend Dave is on his 3rd Xbox 360. He put his on a stand above his TV and used the intercooler as soon as it came out. First was the CPU, the second was the GPU and the 3rd was laggy crap for no reason

2. My friend Shayne is on his 2nd 360. He is a neat freak, clean freak and he has his on top of a shelf about 2 feet above the ground and about 1 foot from his TV. His GPU blew after playing Oblivion for 5 hours straight(Except ofcourse for 3-4 pauses for food, washroom and drink breaks of about 2-3 min a piece)

Now i know for a fact that MS has a 3% failure rate on the released consoles' CPUs alone. Thats just the CPUs that were put in xboxs and passed their quality control.

Thats not bad except when you keep in mind thats the ones that were sent for diagnosis. Which means they were the ones that just wouldn't start up at all.

Keep in mind there is still a whole bunch that fried after a few ours use too.

BTW im on my first XBOX 360 and i just bought it last week and im thinking about returning it because it has a bit of a lag issue with rendering in Halo 2 and Gears of war. Sometimes the models show up as a black block and then render afterwards(GoW) and sometimes the model shows up but the shaders show up late(Halo 2 like it did on original XBOX but isn't supposed to happen on 360)


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By glennpratt on 12/11/06, Rating: -1
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By encryptkeeper on 12/11/06, Rating: -1
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By Enoch2001 on 12/11/06, Rating: 0
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By encryptkeeper on 12/11/06, Rating: -1
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By Samus on 12/11/2006 2:08:49 PM , Rating: 1
your girlfriend IS your xbox. how's the sex?


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By Zirconium on 12/11/2006 11:00:29 AM , Rating: 1
He's gone through 7 Xbox 360s in a year? There's something wrong with that boy; I'd dump your gf cuz it might be genetic.


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By encryptkeeper on 12/11/2006 11:15:28 AM , Rating: 1
Nope. He's sent it back so many times. Some worked for a little while, some didn't. They never tried to charge him, on the contrary they were always very helpful (which is the odd thing) but by a bad stroke of luck they kept sending him bad consoles.


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By JCheng on 12/11/2006 11:48:49 AM , Rating: 4
It's statistically almost impossible that he got 7 bad ones in a row... say each Xbox has a 10% chance of going bad in the first few months (that's an incredibly high estimate, the real number is probably an order of magnitude or two lower). The chances of getting 7 bad ones in a row is 1 in 10,000,000. If the chances of getting a bad one are 1%, then the odds decrease to 1 in 100,000,000,000,000.

So either there's something wrong with his powerline, or he's just breaking the things...


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By encryptkeeper on 12/11/06, Rating: -1
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By masher2 (blog) on 12/11/2006 1:19:22 PM , Rating: 4
> "Damn. If you did the math to figure that out, you are REALLY a loser"

Anyone who can't do the math for that one in their head, in about half a second, is pretty much a loser in my opinion.


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By sxr7171 on 12/12/2006 2:12:52 AM , Rating: 2
Ha Ha! Very true. There are just too many stupid people on the internet. People who can neither spell 4th grade level words nor demonstrate the grammar level of a 4th grader. Then there are those who can't even handle basic math in their heads.


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By KashGarinn on 12/12/2006 4:33:19 AM , Rating: 5
Hehe, reminds me of that verizon thing on youtube.com : http://youtube.com/watch?v=Gp0HyxQv97Q

The fact people go "omg, he can use his brain to do simple math! He must be a loser" makes me think 2 things

1) they must be americans.
2) they must be working for verizon.

K.


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By Christopher1 on 12/11/2006 2:52:34 PM , Rating: 3
There is another possibility: design flaws.

When my father was buying our first Pentium 486 computer 14 years ago, we got THREE in a row that had hard drive problems.

When I bought my Xbox original, I had to return it once to get another console because it fried itself.

Frankly, most homes in the United States have NOTHING wrong with the powerline, and if he had a surge protector on it..... that lets out the powerline problems.


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By Aquila76 on 12/11/2006 4:56:09 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
When my father was buying our first Pentium 486 computer 14 years ago


That was his problem right there.


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By rcc