Xbox 360: More unhappy customers and a lawsuit

Mount Clemens, MIBryan Thompson purchased his Xbox 360 in April, 2006. By November he was already sending it in for repairs because "the red ring of death" had appeared on the front of his console, meaning his console was unusable.

Bryan had heard that the October update was causing problems for some people, but says that his problems did not start until just after Thanksgiving. "I'm not too clear on whether it was the update or something else," he says. "All I know is that the night before this happened, I used the DVD for the first time. I don't know if it's because of that or the system update."

When he noticed the problem, Bryan phoned Microsoft customer service, but was told that he would have to pay to have his console repaired. "I was pretty upset," he says. "They wanted me to pay $140. I argued with them and they agreed to repair it for around $100. But this is a system that I paid $400 for. The warranty is only 90 days, which immediately struck me as odd. It was 90 days for the warranty or pay $60 for a two-year warranty, which I feel is too much, especially with how expensive the system is. It should be a minimum of one year on the warranty."

Bryan is not happy with the treatment he was given by Microsoft and says that other people have had even more problems than he has. "I was on the news about this last week, on Detroit Fox 2. My story was a secondary story. The woman who was the main story has had her Xbox 360 break five times. There are thousands of people out there with the same problem that I'm having, but it seems that Microsoft doesn't want to admit what the problem is. I think it's hardware that's cheaply made."

Bryan sent his Xbox 360 in for repairs earlier this week, so he is still waiting to see if it works when it comes back. "I'm not pleased at all," he says. "I've owned other gaming systems and had no problems with them."

Meanwhile, as the list of people who are upset about the Fall System update of the Xbox 360 grows, one person is taking matters into his own hands and has filed the initial paperwork for a lawsuit against Microsoft.

The paperwork was filed November 29, 2006 and claims Microsoft is liable for breach of contract, violation of consumer protection law, and negligence. According to the paperwork, the suit was filed as a class action on behalf of the plaintiff and anyone else who had hardware problems with their Microsoft Xbox 360 units after Microsoft carried out its fall system update.

The system update was released on October 31, 2006 and was meant to introduce 85 new features and enhancements to the Xbox 360. However, since the update many Xbox 360 owners have had numerous problems with their gaming systems including problems with the consoles crashing and freezing every few minutes and the "red ring of death" appearing on the Xbox's front panel.

According to Gamespot.com, the lawsuit was filed in a Washington district court and claims that the number of affected consumers is at minimum in the thousands. The suit also claims that Microsoft refuses to repair or replace broken systems unless users pay a fee of up to $140 to ship the console back to the company.

The amount requested in the lawsuit varies according to how Microsoft chooses to defend itself. The plaintiff is asking for at least $5 million in damages for breach of contract and an additional $5 million minimum for unfair or deceptive practices under the CPA. If Microsoft argues that there was no contract with the affected users, and therefore no contract to breach, then the plaintiff will argue that Microsoft was negligent and should pay a minimum of $5 million in damages.

Microsoft responded to the lawsuit by saying that less than 1 percent of consoles were affected by the October 31 update and a new version of the update was made available November 1 which eliminated issues related to malfunctioning consoles.