News
New Microsoft Woes
New Legal Issues Surface Over Scratched Discs
by Gamervision
As if losing $1.9 billion to the Red Ring of Death, and having a top executive implemented in an insder-trading casing weren't enough, Microsoft is now being sued over the claim the 360 scratches discs rendering them useless. Being reported by InformationWeek the suit claims, "Microsoft improperly and/or negligently manufactured the Xbox 360 console in a manner that causes the expensive game discs ... to be scratched, rendering the games unusable." The two California plaintiffs claim that after they reported the problem to Microsoft, the company refused to replace or repay them for the damaged games. They also state in the claim that, ""Microsoft's rush to market, while positive for Microsoft, was detrimental to consumers because the Xbox 360 suffered from numerous hardware defects." The suit is seeking Microsoft to pay no less than $5 million in damages to be distributed to Xbox 360 users affected by the glitch.
Comments
I've got a few buddies w/xbox 360's & have never heard of this- though, I've not inspected their discs. But I was concerned when I first heard about Micro$oft getting into the console market way back when. They're no Blizzard in terms of having top-notch QA standards (even at the cost of losing money by delaying games) which means they simply don't release a game until it's FULLY ready.
Micro$oft, over the years, has been laughed at incessantly for releasing unfinished, buggy products (ie, operating systems). It's to the point where it's expected. We've seen it recently with Vista but also with XP, Win2K3 Server, Win2k desktop & server, Win98/Win98ME, Win95. In other words, EVERY single product they've released since the early 90's so it comes to no surprise to an old fogey like me who remembers the nightmares quite vividly. I keep hoping they'll recognize & mend their ways but, with such a long history of infamy, I'm not holding my breath. :(
Apparently, this scratching issue is exponentially more prevalent with consoles that stand upright. I found it interesting that one of my close friends who works at an EB Games says that 75-85% of his "defective" 360 game returns are from systems that were standing vertically during use. Personally, I never felt comfortable with vertically standing any of my consoles, especially not my 360 and its "shit-the-bed"-like tendencies.