Microsoft can’t make Xbox 360 console defect litigation go away

No matter how hard Microsoft tries, it can't defeat a judicial order requiring it to face a proposed class-action lawsuit claiming that the Xbox 360 renders gaming discs unplayable because the console scratches them.

The decision (PDF) Monday by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals sets the stage either for litigation over the allegations or a Supreme Court showdown.

[Halo2ODST2]

wow, this is interesting. had no idea

[XboxOneX]

Microsoft are awesome and I am sure they will make sure anyone who banged or dropped their consoles with the game inserted and scratched the game will be compensated.

[ChronoJoe]

Yup, good guy Microsoft want to replace all our damaged games for free.

:/

[DragonKnight]

"anyone who banged or dropped their consoles with the game inserted and scratched the game."

Ah, gotta love a blatant troll account saying things it knows are outright disingenuous.

[Concertoine]

My friend banged his console, wasn't pretty for either party

[onanie]

You can tell who bangs his XboxOne every night.

[kenshiro100]

My PS3 fell over once and it still works good.
A console shouldn't scratch disks the minute you move it.

[medman]

Microsoft built a real hunk of junk in the 360...it's one of my favorite consoles of all time despite all it's flaws, but my goodness it's a rolling dumpster fire of non-reliability. They went cheap on it's design and materials, and payed a heavy price for it.

[UltraNova]

What you said but mainly because they had to beat Sony to the punch at all costs..costs that proved to be in the billions.

[Kemo_Spear]

I am amazed that this story has not been approved yet.

[FarEastOrient]

What's also amazing is how slow the court process is. At this rate (including the EU case) the Ps5 and Xbox (two?) will be out.

[S2Killinit]

Wow this is still going on. MS attorneys must be working extra hard. Imagine how much money they're getting. Im jelly.

[rainslacker]

I was just thinking...MS doesn't want the class action lawsuit, and said that people could sue them individually...but wouldn't it be awesome if all 55K complaintee's(and anyone else who didn't complain directly to MS) actually did sue MS at the same time. Imagine how much more that would cost them than a class action lawsuit since they would be obliged to go to court for every single one...likely through a representative(lawyer)...which would have to be contracted out on a state by state basis. Since MS does business in every state, they can be sued in any state.

Something to consider since filing a small claims lawsuit doesn't really cost much in most states. Even if MS won every single case, that's still a lot of money they're spending on retaining lawyers.

Just a fun thought I guess...since I find class action lawsuits seem to really just benefit the lawyers, and not many others, and more often than not the cost to the company being sued is a mere fraction of what they should be paying.

[S2Killinit]

Haa. Am i correct in presuming you are a fellow law student?

[rainslacker]

Nope, just insanely smart.:-D

[Bzone24]

What kind of idiot moves their console or anything spinning a disc from vertical to horizontal or vice versa while the disc is playing? If I'm not mistaken, the instructions even said don't move your console while it's on.

That said, it shouldn't have scratched the discs that bad by doing so.

[Immorals]

Wired guitar hero controller, alcohol.. Goodbye guitar hero Metallica!

[Bzone24]

Well of course alcohol mixed with Guitar Hero and a wired controller, you are going to end up with some scratched discs. That goes without saying. Lucky if the console survives.

[kreate]

The thing is, the instructions originally did not state any such warning statements until after they got hit by a lawsuit.

Sometimes im in middle of a game and had to move the console while the game is paused. Although I was extremely cautious.

[S2Killinit]

Fifa with friends, friend bad looser, kick to tv stand, goodbye Fifa.

[Bzone24]

Your friend would owe you a disc in that situation.

[OldDude]

You might want to find new friends.

[Jrmy84]

Actually it completely ruins the disk, I had my Fat Elite sitting vertical and it was bumped while I was playing GTA4 made the disk unreadable. My disk Dr couldn't buff the deep circular wide scratch out.

[joeorc]

That's what can be indeed happen with an optical drive that came.with no vibrational restrictive padding!

Like I pointed out below independent testing was done by sites like tomshardware, watchdog groups, this was Infact true. Retail units were opened up breaking warranty and the optical drives were inspected..there was Infact retail units in 2006-2008 that was in retail channel's that Microsoft shipped to retail that had such faulty Toshiba optical drives.

For those that think , there is still any doubt, what optical drives did Microsoft use for their HDDvD optical drive external add on for the xbox360 who made all of those drives?

Ummmm, Toshiba? Ding..ding..ding..we have a winner.

[ChronoJoe]

I remember accidentally knocking my console while playing World at War. It started sounding like a lawnmower!

It was the final mission on veteran though, so I just kept playing. Haha, wanted to get the game beat before I sorted out the problem. The disc was indeed broken afterwards. It would load some content, but some multiplayer maps would fail to load every time.

[MasterCornholio]

I can think of a natural cause that could scratch the disks.

Any form of vibration caused by the the shifting of the tectonic plates.

Microsoft would have tested the XB1 in San Francisco.

;)

[iTechHeads]

Did you not read the article? People are claiming the console scratched their discs without them ever touching the console. They are claiming defective console units or design.

It's a really small number of people though compared to the 44million 360s sold in the US.

It's probably an acceptable error rate.

[Rookie_Monster]

"The suit claims that vibrations or small movements of the gaming console can cause the optical drive to scratch discs. Microsoft was accused of knowing about the alleged issue before the Xbox 360 launched in 2005."

Wait, I am pretty sure when I bought my first white X360, there is a sticker near the disc tray that say this
http://pictures.xbox-scene....

SO I don't know what is more need to be said if the buyers didn't follow the instruction and elected to move the console while it is playing a spinning DVD disc.

[ABizzel1]

The argument is that a product that's designed to read disc, should have no such defect to begin with where it completely ruins a $60 purchase.

Common sense could have saved a bunch of games, but sometimes accidents do happen, and when you're selling a product you have to make sure it's a stupid proof as possible, because people always find a way to out stupid one another, and when lawyers and greedy people find exploits then boom class action law suit.

If anything the RRoD should have been it, not the disc scratching.

[XboxOneX]

The RRoD was a very small issue that got blown up way out of proportion by people on the internet.

[Bzone24]

@XboxOneX
Pretty sure it wasn't a small issue. I got rrod once, but got a replacement in a couple weeks. If it was small Microsoft wouldn't have set aside a billion dollars for it.

[joeorc]

While what you stated is quite true, it still does not take awayvfrom the fact that due to Microsoft's and Toshiba's very own failure to recall such faulted optical drive's and xbox360/units that had shipped with such a faulted optical drive and not being done with due prudence in the case of doing a product recall, sticking a warning sticker after the fact still does not take away the fact there was faulty units still on the retail chain that had this fault.

Yes you could say , well that's with any product , and while that is indeed true, the problem is when you had a product in the retail chain that had over a 55% failure rate and no product recall was done on the 1st 11 million units!

Like I stated, putting a sticker on there is one thing doing a recall is another.

This law suit is a result of pretty much on n product recall , when you could do exactly what Microsoft did, which is fine and dandy but also the fact that no recall was done on a product with suchva high failure rate..11 million units is quite a lot of units.

This law suit was bound to happen sooner rather than later.

[Summons75]

No like I said below. You're maybe too young for potable cd players but those cds got scratches because of movement and cd players in cars will eventually scratch cds because of movement. It's what happens when two things hit. Moving a console with the disc in is probably the stupidest thing I have ever heard or seen anyone do. You like your $60 game? treat it with respect. People complain about discs getting scratched all the time by systems, kids, pets, S/O. I've never once had a problem because my kid, (late) dog, and parents all knew if you touched a dvd/bluray, game, cd then you make sure you treat it as if it were a new born or don't touch it at all. Let a friend borrow a game once, it came back scratched. I made him buy me a new one (gave him the one he ruined). Never moved my system with the disc in it either and have never had the problem with it because I know how to take care of my stuff.

[SlyFoxC]

@XboxOneX

Small issue?

I had 5 RRoD, let me repeat 5 RRoD. 3 were on the same console (Day one console) and the other 2 were on 2 replacement consoles.

[rainslacker]

I can't think of a single console I've ever owned where I haven't moved it in some way, either accidentally, or intentionally without having any sort of disc scratching problem. Heck, on the PS1, it was a common fix for DRE to turn the console upside down. I've have owned every CD based console except the those really rare niche ones, and those in the Xbox line, so I can say that I do have quite a bit of experience on the issue.

I will agree though that it's probably not the best thing to do in a tray loaded or slot loading drive, as they may not have a way to secure the disc on the spindle.

[dantesparda]

@ Rookie Monster

Defend, defend, defend. Wow! Some of you people are just unbelievable. Seriously, you're still gonna argue this crap? You still cant admit it was a cheap piece of junk?

[Azzanation]

Much like the PSN petitions for a better service. Fan boys will denie anything which makes there favorite brand look bad.

[dantesparda]

Try harder kid. Yeah, no, this is nothing like that. And Live has just as many problems, but you people deny that too.

https://downdetector.com/st...

Why look at all those problems. You're in denial kid.

[joeorc]

@Rookie_monster

That label was not always there

And again its a optical Toshiba drive that had this problem due to missing pads inside the optical drive of the xbox360
Its also not just moving as in Turning the system on its side or up right position while the optical drive was running.

Example toms hardware did tests. There is a reason this is still going on.

http://www.tomsguide.com/us...

Microsoft does not see the the testing to be conclusive that there was any problem, but anyone who knew about optical drives and vibration redundancy restrictive padding knows full well when its not being fully tested can see the failure rate of the optical drive to faulted due to improperly non vibration padding missing from such optical drives.

Both Microsoft and Toshiba are both at blame for this, you are going to have a chance for a failure rate no matter what, its the fact xbox360's were ng shipped without the restrictive vibration padding in the optical drives of early xbox360 models and if a consumer purchased one from a retail chain. That is the reason it is still going on instead of the logical choice of a full product recall, Microsoft chose the extended warranty instead. Well this is some of the result's expected instead of doing a product recall on older model's instead of letting those units still sit in the retail channel in mom and pop shops around in the world wide market that may still have a few of those older units in the retail chain.

Never been used before but still had the faulty optical disc drive. Again Only after 2008 did Microsoft add in that optical drive cover sticker.

[ScorpiusX]

If you can't make it go away, then demolish this case in court to the point the courts find it to be waste of time and resources. That it's dismissed by the court and label it a waste to hear such BS .

[ABizzel1]

This has been going on for years, if they could have done that it would have been over by now. It's not going away easily at it's costing MS money, and these lawyers are having a field day. They want it to go on as long as possible.

If they win against MS they're rich, if MS lawyers win they're filthy rich. It's not ending until one side wins.

[ScorpiusX]

Reason why am rooting for the corporate legal team .

[joeorc]

But its not BS, that is the freaking point!

The fault is what it is, its not a myth, its not some people just trying to put hate toward Microsoft just for the fun of it.

The blunt truth was Microsoft shipped retail unitsvprior to 2009 that means from 2005 to 2008, that this optical drive fault was inside the unit.

Robbie Bach...you know the man who worked over at Microsoft for over 22 years stated that all 11 million shipped first run xbox360's had a fault!

That is the entire 1st year of xbox360 units including well into 2006 retail chain including 2007!

And you think another such fault is doubtful, by a company that instead of doing a logical thing such as a product recall instead do an extended warranty?

Calling it BS is one thing but ignoring a problem inside the hardware does end up causing your company problems down the line if you choose to ignore the warnings of your freaking engineering team.

Thank god it looks like Microsoft is indeed listening to their engineering teams on Quality Control now!

[Summons75]

"damage caused to discs when players repositioned their consoles."

REALLY??? This was the kind of thing that made me want to smash my face in when I worked at gamestop. It's simple....DON'T MOVE YOUR SYSTEM WHEN YOU HAVE A DISC IN AND ESPECIALLY WHEN IT'S ON! Seriously some people are stupid but then we have people that go far beyond their stupidity. Remember CD players, walkmans? What happened when that got shook around....scratches. Have a CD player in your car? What happens to the CDs after a while when driving around, scratches. So common sense would dictate that when you are a moron and you move your console with a disc in it then it will get scratched. My biggest lectures to idiots that came in complaining was 1) don't stand ANY system vertically, your asking for trouble. 2) keep it well ventilated, if not well trouble is heating up. and 3) DON'T move it when a disc is in there. You want to move the system fine but take the disc out, put it back in it's case, then properly unplug everything then move stuff around keeping the first two in mind. Hell, the amount of destroyed discs I saw made me want some regulation to make sure people took care of their stuff, not play frisbee with Halo 3 or the Limited Edition cigarette yellow 360's that people traded in and expected me to touch.

The red ring issue, that was one thing but YOU moving the system with a disc in while on is not anyones fault but yourselves...unless you expect anyone to believe Bill Gates busted in and shook your console then ran off laughing.

[joeorc]

Again, it was not just most moving the d@mn unit even vibration's near or bumping the xbox360 could have caused the optical drive to scratch a disc!

Watchdog groups did testing!
Microsofts very own testing teams even stated there was a problem!

Again ,you can say there was no problem or act like the problem did not exist, well it indeed did exist. And putting a d@mn sticker well after the fact on new units with optical drives with vibrational restrictive padding still does nothing to take away those units that shipped with a optical drive that had no such restrictive vibrational padding to protect the disc frm getting scratched due to vibration of the freaking system getting bumped or some heavy object that my fall near the system or even a person flopping on the floor getting ready to play a game on the system and than finds their $60.00 Game scratched!

Again:

"Remember CD players, walkmans? What happened when that got shook around....scratches. Have a CD player in your car? What happens to the CDs after a while when driving around, scratches. So common sense would dictate that when you are a moron and you move your console with a disc in it then it will get scratched"

And carscthat have CD players today move have vibrations from the road, and do they still have wide numbers of consumers having deep gouges on the disc?

So if no wide speed issue for CD players in cars with excessive vibration, why would a console have such a problem? You act like everyone repositioned the system while the disc was moving and again a watchdog groups did testing, and without even moving the unit while the disc was moving was still scratching a game disc!

Again, its not just moving the system with the disc drive running it was also scratching a disc by just the system having vibration near the system, that even with it should not have that problem,cif..key word if the optical drive has the vibrational restrictive padding. And some xbox360s shipped with optical drives that had on such padding! Inside the optical drive.

[Summons75]

I'm not saying there isn't a problem but what they hell are you doing to cause vibrations right next to the system? Unless there is an earthquake or someone crashed into your home then there really isn't a reason to have your system be moving or even be on an unsteady tv stand or countertop. Again, sure there is a problem...one that exists in all cd players but it is preventable and MS does clearly warn about the problem. So don't be stupid and move your console and don't decided to practice your gymnastics next to the system either. It's not a difficult concept to take responsibility for your stuff.

[Spotie]

... except it took a whole lot more than just a little moving around to scratch a disc in the others you mention.

Besides, pretty much everything else could handle at least SOME moving of the console while the game was running without resulting in a completely useless disc. Notice how this was never a problem with the PS3 or Wii. Or the PS2, or GameCube, or... well, pretty much any console outside the 360.

That's because it's so stupidly easy to do in a 360.

[kneon]

I've never had a cd scratched, not even in a cd Walkman that I would use while cycling and running. It is possible to build cd drives that won't scratch the disk, but Microsoft didn't use such a drive.

[jmc8888]

Lost a BUNCH of games due this crap.

You know what was really shady? I would buy the 'disc protection plans' from places like Best Buy and Toys'R'US. I'd ask them if they would replace them if anything happens. They'd say yes.

Then when I'd take one of them in, they would say they couldn't replace it, because the machine caused it. Why sell a disc protection plan and one that covers everything, when it really doesn't? Talk about a scam.

I still remember buying GTA IV, having it scratch the first day, then going back and buying another one, but not putting it in, because I sent in my 360 to get the Disc Scratch problem taken care of because this was the last straw, only to have during the repair process, one of my 'friends' steal that 2nd copy, and so after buying it twice, I wasn't going to buy it a 3rd time until it got real cheap or the scumbag who stole it got me another one. That Xmas season they had a Black Friday deal and it was for $10...YEA...so I bought it, and played through about a third of it...only to then have my HD on the 360 crap out and lose all my progress.

Yep...and later the 2nd disc drive started not being able to read discs well, and it was impossible to 'install' games that required it, so I never got to play the Halo 4 disc I pre-ordered.

...basically my 360 crashed a lot and didn't get much play the last year. It was ok I had a PS3, Wii U, and at the time an i7 920 and GTX 670 PC.

So when I got my PS4 I knew I still had a disc in there and decided to take the disc out before removing it to put a PS4 in it's place, and what do you know....another RRoD.

Good Riddance.

But yeah, I probably had about $600-900 worth of discs scratched before taxes, and probably close to a $100 for the 'disc protection' that didn't cover it.

The 360 was great when working, but reliability wise with over 50 percent of launch consoles bricked within the 1st year, and a massive overall failure rate... it was a complete piece of excrement.

Oh and no, I didn't move my console around, Perhaps someone or my dog brushed up against a little coffee table thingy that then transferred some vibration to the table it was on, caused the scratches, but that's fragile as hell, and is nothing like someone running around with a Discman, and they had discman with read ahead buffer technology specifically so you could be in a bumpy environment but the disc wouldn't skip. You really needed to mess around hard with a Discman to get it to scratch.

...with a 360, if you blew on it from five feet away it would scratch. Or like others said, it simply was scratching discs without any bumping. Because I didn't bump into my stuff.

I did have this on one other console, my Sega Saturn. Same thing.

But the one thing I remember on the 360, is that some discs were more susceptible then others. I think the ones more susceptible were the discs that were thicker or heavier. The ones that were thinner or lighter (perhaps much of this was the sticker on the top of the disc) tended not to get scratched, while the ones that felt thicker and heavier, did quite often. Maybe not all of them used the dual layer capability of the 360, and perhaps the ones that did, used thicker discs maybe?

[jacksons98]

Too bad they didn't do Blu-ray, all my Blu-ray disks are still mint.

[assdan]

Finally something is happening from this. the 8 or so friends I have who owned a 360, I think one of them didn't have a disc ruined due to this issue. For me, the big issue isn't that it happened, the problem is that microsoft denied it, and seemingly never fixed the problem either.

[Azzanation]

Who moves there console with a disc spinning? Serve them right in my book. Never rely on drives, even if the company said you can, you dont do it lol

Either way, if MS lose they will sue Toshiba, if MS win then nothing happens. Move along I say, we are a generation past this. Too little too late.

[Spotie]

lol, stop it. No device I've ever heard of has ever done to discs what the 360 did, and all it really required was a slight unbalance; it didn't have to be moved significantly, if at all.

If the company says you can do it but you can't, that means you can sue them for false advertisement.

If Microsoft loses- and they just might, if it's been going on this long- they have no recourse to sue Toshiba unless they unwittingly bought the parts. But since it's fairly well established that they knew about the RROD beforehand, it'll be hard to convince judges or juries that they didn't know about this, either.

It's NOT too late, just because the generation is passed. Sure, it'd be great for you, since Microsoft wouldn't have to own up to what they did.

The generation may be over, but what's done lingers.