Microsoft Sued Over Red Ring of Death
Source: Tom's Guide | Keywords: Microsoft, Xbox, 360, Lawsuit
Apparently, a lawsuit against Microsoft exists in the Sacramento County Superior Court, alleging that an excessive number of Xbox 360 consoles have failed.
According to Dailygamesnews.com, the lawsuit also alleges that Microsoft purposely concealed the excessive failure rate in fear of losing its competitive edge over the imminent launch of both PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii consoles. If found guilty, Microsoft will have to publicly launch a refund program in California as well as disgorge all profits attributable to its sale of the Xbox 360.
Unfortunately, there are many factors weighing against the company while it faces a class action lawsuit. The lawsuit cites many recent articles published by websites and magazines that report on Microsoft’s knowledge of the hardware problems facing over 50% of the initial Xbox 360 consoles. Apparently, the company knew about the problem as far back as November 2005.
Although the Xbox 360 console’s financial success rate seems to contradict the company’s technical issues with its hardware, it’s generally believed to be the least reliable gaming console in this decade, perhaps overall. DailyTech spoke with a former EB Games employee during the console’s launch, discovering that 30% of its stock was defective. "The real numbers were between 30 to 33 percent,” said the former EB Games employee, adding that failure rate was even greater for launch consoles. “We had 35 Xbox 360s at launch. I know more than half of them broke within the first six months (red lights or making circles under the game discs). Two of them were dead on arrival.”
In turn, Microsoft extended the console’s warranty to three years instead of the typical one, specifically for cases of the dreaded "Red Ring of Death" (technically called General Hardware Failure). Initially the warranty covered the consoles manufactured in 2005, however that plan has extended to consoles built within the last year. Since the console’s initial release, Microsoft has steadily worked on improving the hardware, most notably implementing a new 2nd heatsink/pipe technology to provide additional cooling for the Xenos GPU.
The recent lawsuit is not the first Microsoft has had to face in regards to the Xbox 360. One consumer filed a class action lawsuit against Microsoft last year in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Rather than complaining about hardware failure, this lawsuit focused on the damage to game disks caused by the console’s drive, another problem the Xbox 360 has endured since it’s initial launch. The lawsuit claimed that the console was "negligently designed and manufactured in that the Console’s laser disc reading assembly contacts and scratches the video game discs during normal and intended operation and use." Another consumer filed a class action lawsuit in November 2006, claiming that an update patch "bricked" his Xbox 360 console, seeking over $5 million in damages and to force Microsoft to repair all damaged consoles for free.
As of now, the failure rate has dropped significantly thanks to a redesigning of the motherboard and the new falcon 65nm chip. Currently Xbox 360 models -from Arcade to Elite- should feature the redesigned hardware with a failure rate now below 15%. Still, console errors are not uncommon, as many consumers still endure video errors, hard drive failures, or other technical issues associated with one red light flashing. Those outstanding problems may hinder Microsoft’s defense even though the overall statistics show improvement over the 1st generation of consoles.
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Wow, I think PC, with more complex hardwares, has lower failure rate than XBOX 360.
^
Agree, and not to mention that you can fix it when it just piss and die.
I think Microsoft deserves to be sued over this. Its clear that they pushed out defective hardware with full knowledge. They are very lucky that consumers nowadays don't seem to care to much about the quality of things. I can guarantee you that if this failure rate was in one of the older consoles the console would have been a complete failure.
I dont know about a lot of these failures.. My friend complained when his first died.. I was at his house and he showed me the sealed cabinet that he kept it in.. It had to be almost 150 degrees in there, but he kept protesting that had nothing to do with it.. I helped him remove the front glass door and the backing to the cabinet, and his new 360 has been alive over 2 years.. Im sure there are a few unit that are flat out defective, but Im sure there's more than a few that are end user related.
This is not going to fly, because they are fixing them for free. If this came, before they had the replacement program in place, then they would be in a lot of crap.
I'm sure not providing adequate cooling definitely shortened the life of a lot of those consoles; but I'm sure that a lot of them were defective. I myself am on my third xbox. The first was an ebay purchase so no surprise it failed after 2 weeks. The second one died after about 50 hours of 1 hour or so gaming sessions. My current one has about 20 hours on it, and it's already red ringed on me twice and has come back to life. I'm just waiting on it to die permanently. I keep the xbox on top of an entertainment stand (totally open) away from the wall and any other electronics and it still gets hot and has the fan running constantly. They just aren't designed to dissipate the heat they generate.
What I found funny about the article is that the lawsuit calls for Microsoft to "disgorge all profits attributable to its sale of the Xbox 360". Am I wrong or haven't they lost quite a bit of money on the 360?
I think this is just speculation, a bit of conspiracy theory, and anti-MS to say they intentionally pushed out defective hardware. Over the last 25 years I have worked for several consumer electronics companies and they generally do not intentionally do this. Problems do come up, it takes time to fix and flush the manufacturing, distribution, and sales channels. MS and any other company know the real cost of problems like the ring of death and know that it cannot be just swept under the rug – if there is anything they can do to fix it they will.
I did personally have this happen to my 360. I called them and had a new one within 10 days. The support calls where the best I have ever experienced, no questions asked they sent me a box to pack it, picked it up, and sent me a new one. It was an inconvenience and I wish their quality control/testing caught the problem initially, but MS handled this better than any other consumer electronics company I have experienced. This just sometimes happens with complex consumer electronics – I just don’t think many of the people complaining about this to the point of lawsuit really understand this.
I agree with Blah; I don't think MS knew they had defective hardware and pushed it out anyway. The cost to repair all of these systems is substantial and I'm sure a huge headache.
My return experience was also very quick and smooth. They also sent me a free 3 month gold subscription with my new (refurbished) xbox. It's just kind of annoying that I've had to do it twice already and am anticipating doing it again very soon. It's really frustrating to get a console back that was manufactured before my previous one that has been "refurbished" to last another 3-6 months. Why not send me a new unit that has the new motherboard and 65nm chip so maybe it will last a few years?
With that being said, I still wouldn't consider suing the company over this. I mean really, $5 million because your xbox quit? Get real. I'll just be much more hesitant to buy Microsoft when the next group of consoles come around.
Tom's sucks at reporting... "Apparently, the company knew about the problem as far back as November 2005" give me a break... While that may be true, a REAL journalist would say Allegedly, because it hasn't exactly been proven yet... give me a break, do we live in America or Russia?
So... the free three year warranty isn't good enough? Some people are just out to try and make a buck. If you console fails you get it replaced for free... why, again, are you suing?
Of course some crap like this would come from the worst run state in America, California. Someone please kick those hippies out of the union.
Microsoft is already producing these consoles at a huge loss (hoping to make up the cost in game profits to at least break even eventually...) I wish people would be more realistic with lawsuits. Seriously, "$5 million in damages and to force Microsoft to repair all damaged consoles for free." ?!?!? They're already fixing them for free, why should Jim Dorkmeier not be laughed out of court in his seeking that kind of money for a broken GAME SYSTEM that was replaced with a working one.
It makes me wonder... how many of these stupid putative damage lawsuits would these shifty attorneys file if we created a federal (U.S.) statute that they can only collect their fee on the actual damages portion of the settlement and not any collected putative damages?
The point I was making at selling the consoles at a loss... if lawsuits like this one keep going, Microsoft will just exit the market. While I personally don't care and don't have an Xbox, I'm sure others would not want to have to pick between just a Wii2 and a PS4 in the next round.
This happened to my brother a bit to lol. He had one dead red, and it was after warranty. Went and bought another one and the same day he bought it. It got a red ring of death. Thats just sad.
This suit is stictly legit, and needed. And to two microsoft isn't getting of the market anytime soon. Their still making crap loads of money. And when they know its their fault they'll just have to do it right next time if they feel as though they can't get away with defective crap again.
I am from Ecuador, my brother was in USA, when he was there, we decided to buy a game console, we got two options, XBOX or PS3, before read a lot of histories about RROD, we bougth a PS3, that thing goes really good. MS needs to resolve this problem urgent!!!
For anyone thinking that Microsoft did it on purpose, as much as they most assuredly suck, fixing things for free kills profits. It's just far too expensive to be plausible. I'd like to see the actual cost accrued so far for the repairs.
Noobe: I do feel bad for your brother and given the history, MS should have repaired/replaced if for no other reason than to have him spend money on games rather than a new system. That absolutely sucks that he had that happen.
Microsoft still loses money on each Xbox360 they sell... quarterly losses for the "Entertainment and Devices Division" that produces the Xbox hardware have been decreasing according to their financial reports, but they are still running at a loss as of 2Q08. They're in the market to be IN THE MARKET and not for the crap loads of money that people assume they must be making on the deal. Info is from their last quarterly statement.
I have a repair business and have repaired these for people that did not want to wait for microsoft warranty. The problem was a heatsink that was too small for the amount of heat generated by the GPU coupled with insufficent airflow over this processor. The constant overheating then cooling would cause solder balls to crack and or seperate from the main board when the board warps. The newer design is much better as it has heat pipe and epoxy to hold the gpu to the board. Just make sure you don't set 360 on its side as this can work against the heatpipe and still cause failure. I wouldn't be afraid to purchase one of these now-much better design.
So... the free three year warranty isn't good enough? Some people are just out to try and make a buck. If you console fails you get it replaced for free... why, again, are you suing?Of course some crap like this would come from the worst run state in America, California. Someone please kick those hippies out of the union.
Dude! We voted the Govenator
And yes, like every other state, we have far more lawyers than we need.
Xboxes are cheap pieces of crap and I hope MS fails in this market. A world without xbox would be a better place. Maybe some PC franchises would actually be made as proper PC games again instead of all the boring dumbed down Xbox-PC co-developed rubbish we get today.
That is saying a lot as it will have to square off against the the Playstation 2. I had one the first units manufactured; it scratched my discs, refused to play some pristine DVDs and eventually the drive jammed. Opened it up fixed the drive but snapped some needle thin wires conectiong my fan to the mainboard. Ended up tossing the first; bought a revision model in '07 and the laser began failing after 6 months until it refused to play anything. Eventually fixed it. This why I am not so quick to drop 400 - 600 on a new system.
nelson_nel, I love you explosive, over the top response to the use of the word 'Apparently'. Way to keep your cool!
blackened144, I don't know if it is reasonable to disqualify 'a lot of these failures' because you have stupid friends.
Lastly, I don't know the extend of MS's negligence but you have to understand that it was a race to the retail stores. The money is not in the hardware itself, it's in the annual fee, the software, and the accessories, period. If MS put out faulty equipment and it was purchased then a HUGE portion of those people are already going to have accessories, games, membership, et al. They WILL wait for a replacement or to get it fixed. At this point they are tied to XBox, their not going anywhere and MS has won one more buyer, present and future. The average consumer puts out just over 1450.00 in game console, games, accessories and online expense in a five year period. So you tell me, would it have been cheaper to let the ps3 come out first and loose those, what was it about 7 million, consoles sold? (7 million times $1450.00[approx ]) minus the TRUE cost of fixing the equipment...were it not for these potential losses in legal costs, it would have been (and probably still is) the best financial move. So don't jump of the idea of putting out faulty equipment is laughably outrageous. It's been done before and it will be done again.
I'd like to put a theory out there.
I personally think that Microsoft released faulty 360s intentionally, to ward off piracy.
Think about it.Microsoft is no strangeer to piracy. They know how often it happens better then anyone. Now, pirating 360 games is possible, but it involves opening the console, and voiding your warranty. If you knew that the console had a high failure rate, you'd certainly htink twice about voiding your warranty.
Might be a bit paranoid, but its not outlandish either.
Microsoft isn't the sole party to blame here. You have people that do not take care of the console in terms of proper ventilation and then you have nVidia to blame.
The majority of the problems around the red ring come from GPU issues. All of the GPUs are made by nVidia.
Microsoft should have stayed with the ATI solution...
@Mediaslave
Your idea IS outlandish, and you are more than a bit paranoid.
AndrewMD, they already use ati GPU, the xenox gpu used in xbox 360 was build by ati.
what people seem to not get is that if a person has to return the product more than 1 time in 3 years, that product is garbage.
If this were a car company, bye bye car company.
hat is saying a lot as it will have to square off against the the Playstation 2. I had one the first units manufactured; it scratched my discs, refused to play some pristine DVDs and eventually the drive jammed. Opened it up fixed the drive but snapped some needle thin wires conectiong my fan to the mainboard. Ended up tossing the first; bought a revision model in '07 and the laser began failing after 6 months until it refused to play anything. Eventually fixed it. This why I am not so quick to drop 400 - 600 on a new system.
Yeah, There was ALLOT of defective PS2's. that said, it was before the sue for everyone mentality and Sony did not even admit or warranty those ones.
360 is the best console that ever came out, best EVER. If it died today i'd go buy another one, but even if it did die i have warranty with best buy and a 3 year warranty with Microsoft.
Another pointless lawsuit that should just lead to idiots who filed it to be killed.
Well that does it!!!! I am selling the xbox 360 tomorrow… Stupid xbox 360!!!!
This is very simple to understand. Let's pretend this is a fridge and not a game console. There are millions of them out there, they have a high failure rate, but the company replaces it within a few weeks each time it dies. People want their money back instead because it is a defective product, but the fridge company says no. The fridge company is in the wrong. IMHO. Give them their money back for the fridge and any food they lost (i.e. games published by Microsoft).
Simple. Only in fanboy land is it acceptable to ship such a product... I had assumed that they MUST have resolved the problem when I bought mine... no such luck - it died within a few months. Luckily, I DID get my money back from the retailer. Got a store credit rather - which I bought the PS3 with.