While Microsoft is suing DHL for the “train accident” that destroyed their beloved Xbox 360, another group of people decided to take matters on the famous Red Ring of Death into their own hands. A few days ago a lawsuit was filed against Microsoft for knowingly launching the 30% defective Xbox 360 to the public, the reason being that since the beginning the Xbox 360 has had serious manufacture problems like overheating, malfunctions, problems with the DVD drive and our “favorite” the terrible Red Ring of Death (RRoD) which practically makes your Xbox 360 useless.
The lawsuit filed in the Sacramento County Superior Court under California’s consumer protection statutes claims that Microsoft knew about the initial problems of the Xbox 360, and even knowing about the defective product they ignored the warnings and decided to leave it as a “minor problem” which they thought they could be fix with an update or patch. They were wrong. Years passed and people started returning their 360s to Microsoft due to problems with the system (RRoD), Microsoft then giving back a refurbished system which after a period of time suffered the same fate. In fact, in a report it’s said that at least half of the first production of the consoles were defective.
The lawsuit tries to make a program to “disgorge all profits attributable” to Microsoft for selling the defective product. Microsoft thought that their extended warranty extension plan would help but it cost them over $1 billion dollars to implement this plan, and yet we still suffered the rage of the RRoD…
Hope after this Microsoft decides to take care of the products we consumers buy from them, because it’s damn annoying to wait every 3 months for our new defective consoles to be shipped back so we can play our tower of “new” games, waiting to be opened…
Sources: Reghardware.co.uk, ComputerandVideoGames.com
On October 21, 2007, one of DHL’s trains going from McAllen, Texas, to Long Beach, California derailed and as a consequence 21,600 Xbox 360 consoles got “destroyed” in the accident. Those consoles were going to be shipped to Flextronics Industrial Co. in Honk Kong, China who were the intended recipient. A year later Microsoft has decided to sue DHL for $2 Million dollars due to “impact damage, wetting, pilfering and shortage” that the consoles suffered during the accident. Not only that, but DHL has refused to compensate Microsoft for the lost even thought they “negligently breached its duties as a common carrier, handler, bailee, warehouseman, agent, or in other capabilities.” the court says. DHL has not yet commented about the suit. No wonder why many people complain about broken 360’s.