Microsoft Sued....Again!

[Gizmo]

Seems Microsoft is once again the target of a class action lawsuit, according to Yahoo! News. Apparently a fellow is a bit disgruntled over the fact that his XBox 360 doesn't work. He claims that Microsoft was in such a hurry to get their new game console out before Nintendo that they cut corners and sold a 'defectively designed product'.

What do you think? Does Microsoft have a fundamental design problem in the XBox 360, or is this the normal 'first run' issues that one can expect to see in any new product? Is it a truly widespread problem a some believe, or is it a few isolated cases, like Microsoft says? Tell us!

[Seperah]

As much as I dont like microsoft. I believe these incidences are random and isolated at best. Now, was there a recall on the power cables for the first Xbox..yes. I mean, everything has its growing pains, I know Microsoft would not ship a defective box simply to get a product out there

This would in turn badly hurt their gaming reputation...and, Microsoft knows they dont have to be worried about the "Revolution"...Nintendo hasnt been too hugely a competetor since the N64.

The PS3 on the other hand...has handed, and will had the Xbox line their ass on a sliver platter, its that simple. But there is much time before Sony realeases their big gun. I played COD2 on a demo machine at the mall....played fine. I wasnt to impressed, but still played great.

[Daniel ~]

Whatever the excuse, if you market a product (Hardware) it had better work. Does MS think it can play "Windows" with hardware?

Buy today! It will be working by our next paid upgrade!

Someone should tell MS that the rules of monopoly don't apply where there is competition!

That should do me til noon!

[danrok]

It is blatently more than just a few isolated cases. Whether the problems are widespread or not is harder to say. To me "a few" means 3 to 5 or so.

I think they are making even more of a mess out of the situation by making false claims. They won't reveal exactly how many Xboxes are duff - this speaks for itself. They have a track record for skimping on quality whilst maximising on quantity and profits for Gates's back pocket.

Why do people still get suckered into buying their products? It's not as if the Xbox 360 has offered anything genuinely new!

[madcatmk3]

it's a 3% defective raation which is better then most new products. Also out of 10 of my friends who hvae a PS2 onlt 4 of them wokr. My philosphy is if a complex machine doesn't work hit it (I'm being serious). One of my uncles who used to work at IBm said hte first computer they had which were the huge ones when the didn't work the engineers would just kick them a few times.

[madcatmk3]

Originally Posted by danrok

It is blatently more than just a few isolated cases. Whether the problems are widespread or not is harder to say. To me "a few" means 3 to 5 or so.

I think they are making even more of a mess out of the situation by making false claims. They won't reveal exactly how many Xboxes are duff - this speaks for itself. They have a track record for skimping on quality whilst maximising on quantity and profits for Gates's back pocket.

Why do people still get suckered into buying their products? It's not as if the Xbox 360 has offered anything genuinely new!

Nethier does any game consul and I have seen the unfied sahder/vertex nenchmarks and thier not that good all this is,is a cuttthroat game to hy[e up thier product the most. Nothing more. All the conuls aren't that good for the fact thqat they sell for $400 when we pay that for a GPU mean they can only fit so much in there.

[danrok]

Apparently, it costs MS more to make the Xbox 360's than what you actually pay for one. They will make their money by taking something like a $10 cut on every game sold.

The main problem MS have isn't with faulty consoles, but the lack of stock for retailers. They will miss the boat if they don't get more units out there very soon.

[dsio]

Originally Posted by Seperah

As much as I dont like microsoft. I believe these incidences are random and isolated at best.....

Here lies the problem though.

A random problem is not an issue. It means poor quality control and bad workmanship, but korean car makers have been doing it for decades.

Random problems are a broken hard disk here, a faulty power plug there, a damaged motherboard here, an overheating CPU there.

This is a matter of the same problem, happening over and over again. The problem is not in a manufacturing flaw, it isnt a heatsink that is badly thermal gooped, it is an engineer not providing enough cooling for the system.

It is the job of an engineer not just to design something. And idiot can do that. It is an engineer's job to design it within strict performance tolerences, and to operate normally within a very wide range of possible conditions it could be exposed to, exceeding by a small margin any extremes it may be subjected to.

Then they are expected to test the device thoroughly for its limits and establish an extremely low mean failure rate at any probable environmental variable that the device may encounter, and some that it probably would not encounter.

Learning how to do that is half of my study as an engineering student, and is something we are drilled on regularly.

By this poll: http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=392599

15% of a group of 1000 people have defective Xbox 360s. This may not be a fair distribution, but it does show that there is a considerable percentage of defective units in the field.

On that basis, I think these people have a definate case.

[madcatmk3]

that is a high rate but in reality most people who have working ones aren't looking on the internet to get some one. However we don't know the exact causes. Mabey they have a wamer or colder place then when they were stored before and now when tunred on in the opisite temp thers condensation and it ruins a low quality fan. There can be many factors.

[Chesso]

Factors that a company like microsoft should have thought ahead about and found a solution before distrobution no? pretty much what dsio said but in less words and not as much strength to it.

[danrok]

We can be sure that the engineer concerned would have know that these machines are going to be used in a warm environment, i.e. people's living rooms. It's more likely that the design was over budget and someone decided to compromise on the cooling to reduce the cost.

You shouldn't have to dangle your hardware from bits of string to make it work!

[Daniel ~]

Unless it's a yo-yo; just trying to cover all the exits for ya Danrok!

[danrok]

* Unless 90 years of age.

[Daniel ~]

What the world has passed yo-yo's by? I have truly lived to long! Next time cover your own exits! ":O}

[Chesso]

Off topic but hey i used to think yo-yo's were the best, much newer versions of them of course all pretty and stuff *drools*.

[Daniel ~]

I still thing they are the best!

"One can never lose what is truly one's own, even if you throw it away."

I gained my first lesson in philosophy from a Duncan Jo-jo! ":O}

[LP]

I'm a bit late to chime in on this, but yes MS contracted builders have and will ship out hardware with known bugs and defects, just to get out on the market in a certain time frame.
I was a beta tester for the MSNTV2 and it was put on the shelf with known defective keyboards.
I had one and had to send it in and they sent a replacement, once they had figured out the problem.
After talking to the alpha testers, they revealed that MS knew there were problems for months before the boxes went on sale, but put them on the market anyway. Of course MS swore they had talked with the hardware manufacturer and the flaw was fixed, but it wasn't.
So the XBox 360 debacle didn't surprise me one bit.

[Áedán]

On the other hand, I've found that most yo-yos do not suffer from an overheating problem, which is good news.

[Daniel ~]

There is one glaring design defect! If one is less than cautious and to tight a sting connection was made (necessary to over come the evil of non-returning jo-jo's) The string cut the blood flow to the attach finger tip (sold separately). If one is intent on mastery, one must be prepared to have both the index and the middle finger appear a deeply bruised purple/blue and somewhat circumsized. Small price to pay!

I sported my four fingers (two on each hand) with pride! Unfortunity, it marked me as a semi-pro and matches became hard to come by. the money dried up and I was forced to give up my chosen profession and return to third grade class room when the bell rang.

They brought me along to fast and ruined my chances to get into the big leagues!

But I don't blame Duncan for that! I blame the bookies and a corrupt governing body!