XBox 360 - Class Action Lawsuit

[talyn99]

By the way, does anyone know how many X360's was available for launch. Class action suit though. ONE guy is class actuon, lol, i have to agree, if you can get your console looked at and replace, do that. What can go wrong, they find this guy wants to make a quick buck. hence that 'lemon law' goes more in the favor of big corporations, and hence anyone with a genuine complaint is more scrutinized. Bids bad for us all.

As anyone knows i am a SOny fan, so that being said teh 8 -core cells sacres me more, as far as yield rates. Alot more acn go wrong there. So if I happen to get a defective unit, I hope I run into no B.S.

But that guy could have just vied to have his unit replaced, simple

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You do not build a car that is dangerously unstable above 70 mph and then put in disclaimers to never exceed the speed limit and believe that you are off the hook with the consumer.

Except I imagine for most users of this forum 70 MPH is greater than or equal to the national speed-limit and the car has no need to go faster anyway

 

[dizzyd]

Last time i had a problem with my sisters ps2 they charged me 50$ to look at it and it took a week for the box to come to send it to them in . Took over a month for us to get it back. This was 5 months after launch though.

So i dunno if they improved at all .

When I had problems with my PS2, Sony fixed it and shipped it back to me within a week for free. I still have my original PS2 from when I bought it 4+ years ago.

 

[c0_re]

Using this forum (or any gaming forum) as evidence is not good.

Those with problems post loudly and often. Those without problems might not post at all. Plus, throw in the phan buoy factor and you have a very skewed sense of magnitude. I see no reason to doubt Microsoft's claims. If there is a problem then lying about statistics will just make a class action lawsuit that like the referenced one worse.


Personally, I almost hope that the fear of faulty products keeps people from buying it so that I can get one before Christmas. When I visit my family, I would like to play games on the Xbox 360 instead of more World of Warcraft this year.

GASP OMG someone that actually makes sence and I thought I was living on a different planet there for awile.

If you are going to comment on the stupidity of others, you could at least attempt to properly punctuate your sentences.

Nite_Hawk

oh for the punctuation nazi above, I could care aless this isn't a professional environment I'm not paid to be here(I'm at work right now) I don't really care what people on an internet forum think of me you don't sign my paycheck, lighten up this is the web.

 

[Albuquerque]

You do not build a car that is dangerously unstable above 70 mph and then put in disclaimers to never exceed the speed limit and believe that you are off the hook with the consumer.

Apples and oranges. You can seriously injure or kill yourself, everyone else in your car, and potentially other other innocent people near you if your car suddenly exploded / went bezerk at 70+mph. If your XBOX360 freezes, nobody is injured, there is no property damage, you don't lose productivity, there is no monetary loss of any sort. The difference is quite obvious.

A proper analogy would be putting a disclaimer on the car that said "If you don't use premium gasoline, then you will NOT get the horsepower we promised you". IE, you don't follow the directions, we can't guarantee the device works to it's full capacity. Guess what? Cars already come with those labels, and so does your xbox.

 

[eDoshin]

Apples and oranges. You can seriously injure or kill yourself, everyone else in your car, and potentially other other innocent people near you if your car suddenly exploded / went bezerk at 70+mph. If your XBOX360 freezes, nobody is injured, there is no property damage, you don't lose productivity, there is no monetary loss of any sort. The difference is quite obvious.

A proper analogy would be putting a disclaimer on the car that said "If you don't use premium gasoline, then you will NOT get the horsepower we promised you". IE, you don't follow the directions, we can't guarantee the device works to it's full capacity. Guess what? Cars already come with those labels, and so does your xbox.

I didn't mean to put 360s in the category of "defectively designed" consumer products .. just that we happen to be talking about the MS console. I put as much into the 360 overheating furor as the PSP dead pixels. There are just a lot of emotions involved, and we only hear from the minority with actual problems, not the vast majority with good units. But just in general, products need to have enough tolerance to abuse such that if you buy a audio/video component, you can reasonably expect to be able to put it in your entertainment center. An overheating appliance CAN potentially be dangerous, although in the case of consoles and PCs, it will probably just shut down .. but that in itself is intolerably annoying.

I'm gonna just drop out of this debate because I don't want to drag 360 into this any longe.

 

[Slides]

What the...?

Well, I'm never going to buy anything Sony after the rootkit fiasco anyway, slow warranty service is just more incentive for me.

 

[Bobbler]

Well, I'm never going to buy anything Sony after the rootkit fiasco anyway, slow warranty service is just more incentive for me.

Hurray for martyrs...

Did you stop buying MS products when they were found to use tons of anti consumer practices? Did you stop buying Samsung/Hynix/Etc memory when they were found to be pulling a price fixing scam on consumers? Etc, etc.

Idealistic consumerism is pointless.

 

[c0_re]

Hurray for martyrs...

Did you stop buying MS products when they were found to use tons of anti consumer practices? Did you stop buying Samsung/Hynix/Etc memory when they were found to be pulling a price fixing scam on consumers? Etc, etc.

Idealistic consumerism is pointless.

Well the rest of those companies didn't jam their product down your throat either

 

[Bobbler]

Well the rest of those companies didn't jam their product down your throat either

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here.

 

[c0_re]

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here.

What choice do I have if I want a certain CD music\DVD album published by Sony?

 

[Bobbler]

What choice do I have if I want a certain CD music\DVD album published by Sony?

What choice do you have if you want a usuable computer or memory for it? You can get music from iTunes or a similar service if you want that exact CD, and if you just want the genre of music you can get other CD's. Meanwhile if you want memory, at all, for your computer you're likely going to be supporting companies that screwed the consumer for a couple years. I certainly was pissed to find out that my paying 500 dollars for 256mb of ram was all because Samsung and pals were just being jerks. Similarly, MS isn't exactly kosher in the business practices they have, but if you want a computer that's actually useful then you have to support them. What MS and Samsung(and pals) have done put consumers in a worse position than Sony's few dozen CDs -- it doesn't mean you should stop supporting MS and Samsung/Hynix/Etc, they made their mistakes and they pay for it, just like Sony will. But don't sit here and act like some kind of martyr, unless you going to boycott all anti consumer acts from companies, and in that case you're likely not going to be spending much money at all -- forgive me for getting upset at people's idealistic consumer approach, but it's, frankly, incredibly stupid and often inconsistant (like a vegan not eating stuff from animals but wearing leather, etc).

 

[scooby_dooby]

There's a big difference between price-fixing, or aggressive business practices, and installing an unauthorized piece of software on apersons PC which opens them up to Viral attacks.

Really apples and oranges here. I agree with your overall sentiments though, although it is the consumers only recourse and they are entitled to those decisions, that's why customer service etc is so important. There are always options, and it's your perogative as a consumer to chose who you give your hard earned money to (it's still useless, but so is a single vote in an election i guess...does that mean you stop voting?)

 

[Slides]

Hurray for martyrs...

Did you stop buying MS products when they were found to use tons of anti consumer practices? Did you stop buying Samsung/Hynix/Etc memory when they were found to be pulling a price fixing scam on consumers? Etc, etc.

Idealistic consumerism is pointless.

MS and Samsung et al. were made to either change their practices or pay fines and I believe have sufficiently shown good faith in rectifying their wrongs.

Sony has not only delayed providing a solution to the problem, but has still to admit fully that it was in the wrong.

And I've always considered Sony to be overpriced and full of marketing hype, more than most other companies. The last Sony product I bought was a walkman. Anything Sony makes today can be substituted with another company’s product with little loss in quality or service.

 

[Bobbler]

There's a big difference between price-fixing, or aggressive business practices, and installing an unauthorized piece of software on apersons PC which opens them up to Viral attacks.

Really apples and oranges here.

I certainly hope you aren't trying to imply that what MS and Samsung have done are somehow less severe to the consumer. The actual effect, on the overall consumer base and average consumer, of what SonyBMG did is miniscule in comparison.

That isn't my point though -- I was saying that bad things companies do (illegal things) are often punished for us (that's part of a governments job), so it's a bit idealistic to say "I'm never supporting Sony again", especially when you don't offer the same insanity towards other companies who have done things that are worse or similar. It's hypocritical.

 

[Bobbler]

MS and Samsung et al. were made to either change their practices or pay fines and I believe have sufficiently shown good faith in rectifying their wrongs.

Sony has not only delayed providing a solution to the problem, but has still to admit fully that it was in the wrong.

And I've always considered Sony to be overpriced and full of marketing hype, more than most other companies. The last Sony product I bought was a walkman. Anything Sony makes today can be substituted with another company’s product with little loss in quality or service.

Right, because Samsung and pals immediately admitted they did wrong? Infact, I don't think they did admit it -- they paid the fines quietly and nothing more was said (similar to settling out of court -- no admittance of guilt). MS still does questionable things business wise, so forgive me for questioning your seemingly intermittent set of ethics.

 

[scooby_dooby]

IMO what Sony did was far and away worse than anything you're comparing it to.

Your examples are examples of the consumers as a whole getting ripped off, it has no reall effect on the individual consumer. IMO that's nearly as bad as infecting an individuals computer, intentionally hiding your program, and opening that users computer up to viral attacks!

Regardless of the #'s affected, the rootkit fiasco is far more torubling and far more devious, to me as an individual than samsung fixing the price on their ram (which is already dirt cheap).

 

[scooby_dooby]

MS still does questionable things business wise, so forgive me for questioning your seemingly intermittent set of ethics.

MS is an extremely aggressive company in the way they do business, maybe even cut throat some would say. But hey, IMO that's business, it's dog eat dog out there, and MS(gates) is just good at what they do.

The fact that so much of the money MS generated eventually goes to charity means much more to me ethically than their aggressive business tactics.

 

[The_Standard]

There's a big difference between price-fixing, or aggressive business practices, and installing an unauthorized piece of software on apersons PC which opens them up to Viral attacks.

Really apples and oranges here. I agree with your overall sentiments though, although it is the consumers only recourse and they are entitled to those decisions, that's why customer service etc is so important. There are always options, and it's your perogative as a consumer to chose who you give your hard earned money to (it's still useless, but so is a single vote in an election i guess...does that mean you stop voting?)

There was no 'unauthorized piece of software" installed by Sony. That is a lie. You had to agree with the EULA which made very clear that software would be installed.

The user had to authorize the following:
http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/sony-eula.htm

I'm not saying what Sony did was right, but there is no reason to lie about the facts either.

What choice do I have if I want a certain CD music\DVD album published by Sony?

As long as you're in the US, chances are good you could buy the CD or the tracks you wanted on iTunes Music Store and deal with their DRM, instead of buying the CD from Sony. Or you could do a D-A-D recording of the CD from your CD player to your computer. There is always an alternative, even if it is less convenient. No one forced anyone to agree with Sony's EULA.

 

[Bobbler]

So making every consumer who purchased a computer pay nearly double the price for their ram is okay? Right. When samsung was doing this type of thing ram wasn't dirt cheap. Also, it was not until December 1st of this year that Samsung pleaded guilty to it -- until then they didn't admit guilt (this took place from 1999-2002).

Doing who knows how much damage to possible innovations in software and what else is perfectly okay? Right. I don't even know where to begin on this one, but it has pretty severe and incalculable implications.

Additionally, how can consumers as a whole getting ripped off and screwed be somehow worse than a fraction of a given consumer base? Only someone from mars would argue that the entire consumer base getting screwed (financially and who knows how else) is somehow worse than something, which, for most users won't make a difference to their experience (only a fraction play CDs in their computers and only a fraction of those will actually be harmed by it). Don't get me wrong, I think Sony should be punished and they will, but this isn't somehow worse than what most every big company does (most companies out there do questionable things).

I really didn't want this to turn into some huge debate; I can't even fathom why anyone would defend Slide's remark -- it's asinine.