The important issues challenging our society remain at the forefront of the class action bar:
Microsoft has been targeted by a $5m (£2.5m) lawsuit over its Xbox 360 console and the infamous yet almost forgotten scratched disc saga. There have for a long time been many rumours about the Xbox 360 scratching game and movie discs.
Count on lawyers never to forget. What’s this about?
A growing number of Xbox 360 customers are reporting having problems with their disc’s getting scratched by the DVD drive when switching the unit’s position from vertical to horizontal and vise versa.. Initially we thought this was the usual fanboy vs. hater propaganda that swirls around the launch of any new console like this. It didn’t take long until the seriousness of the situation…
… which is explained at some length. Not everyone is sympathetic to the victims in this dog-eat-dog world. But most of the discussion of this burning issues seems to go back, indeed a couple of years.
On the other hand, there’s always the Old World, ever eager to distract from its own coming demographic obsolescence by beating up on that most American of companies, Microsoft. Yes, less than a month ago word got out that the EU lean was on Microsoft to address the problem — which Microsoft seems grudgingly to admit to.
One month: That’s about long enough to read the story, do some research, find a lead plaintiff, and file the lawsuit. So foes of the class action can thank the European Union for this one. Considering the “popularity” of Microsoft on either side of the pond (right up there with plaintifs’ lawyers), not much sympathy is to be expected. But this is an interesting exercise in how the once-forgotten can, in the new global economy, still be resurrected, as long as the statute hasn’t run.
6 Comments
In the old days, when high-tech products were new, there was a three letter acronym that was quoted to you when you tried to get help – RTM. Sometimes that would be expanded to RTFM when tech support was sufficiently annoyed with you.
If the manual says don’t move the device while in operation, then don’t do that! Today it seems that everybody thinks they know more than the engineers who design the products.
Give it another couple years, and the plaintiff’s bar will remind the world of all the damage, by then mostly repaired, paid off, and forgotten, done by flying Wii-motes as the non-defective-yet-not-very-strong wrist-strap falls victim to centripetal force of particularly energetic Wii users, causing the sweat-lubricated Wiimotes to be released from the user’s control and fly into everything from ceiling fans to expensive TV screens.
Normally, I would jump at the chance to rail against Megaslop, but not this time. ANY compact (1/3 height) DVD/CD player will scratch the disk if you rotate the drive from horizontal to vertical while the disk is spinning.
Centripetal force will make the disk want to remain static while you’re forcing it to rotate. Ever play with a gyroscope? Same effect.
Many products I own have similar problems when I flip them on their sides while they are in use. You should see the difficulties I have with my washing machine, car, and crib. Where do I sign up for the class action suits on those?
Maybe that “remove child before folding” tag on the stroller was a necessary warning.
To be accurate, Microsoft placed a warning on the front of the xbox360 that clearly states “Do Not Move Console With Disc In Tray”. In 3 languages too. I’m sure the same warning can be located in the manual as well..
There’s no reason to sue on the washing machine– of the three things you mention, Zubon, that’s one that won’t scratch its contents if you flip it on its side while operating. And at the risk of accidentally helping the plaintiffs, none of those devices are sold as being operable either on its base or side. Of course, the use of either/or doesn’t suggest that it can be operated at any angle in between, much less operating at all of them, one after another, as such a flip would imply.
I, for one, recommend an engineering solution– increase the mass of the spinning elements within the 360, to the point that the gyroscopic moment is large enough to prevent a user from accidentally or deliberately changing the orientation of the console while it’s operating.
Then kids would *really* learn something about gyroscopes. As would the pets, the vacuum cleaner, blundering parents, and whoever else is knocking over these X-boxes.