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[Xbox-Scene]

Lawyer Speaks Out on Xbox LIVE Lawsuit Posted by XanTium | January 16 19:15 EST | News Category: Xbox360

From mtv.com: When three Texas gamers couldn't get online to play "Call of Duty 4" or "Halo 3" on their Xbox 360s last December, they decided to sue. In a class-action lawsuit filed January 4, gamers Keith Kay, Orlando Perez and Shannon Smith claim that they and millions of other Xbox Live users suffered damages in excess of $5 million. In his first interview with the press, the plaintiffs' lawyer, Jason Gibson, explained the gamers' side of things to MTV News. "These are not guys looking to get rich," Gibson said in a telephone interview from Houston Tuesday. "They are in their late 20s and 30s. They are college-educated. These are not young kids who just turned 18 and [want] to sue for the fun of it. This is, to them, a real issue." "When you have one person who is mad and they can't get a response, and they can't get their complaints addressed by a company like Microsoft, the only way to get their attention is in numbers," Gibson said. He said the company had to have known what was going to happen with the Xbox Live overload. "If they had not anticipated the sales, then they would not have put out that many units of the Xbox to begin with." Last week, Microsoft announced that Live had reached 10 million subscribers and claimed record-setting revenue for consoles sold in 2007, covering strong sales through the holiday season. Gibson said that proves Microsoft's priorities were out of order. "They take the money for the subscriptions, but they don't make sure that the service is going to be there," Gibson said. "They kind of put the cart before the horse. To me, you make sure the service is going to be there. Make sure the product is going to be there. And then feel good about taking money for the service and the product." Dennis said Microsoft could not comment on the lawsuit because the company has yet to be served. Gibson is in the process of doing so, after which Microsoft will have 20 days to respond to the suit. With Gibson proceeding and Xbox blogger Hryb gagged from updating gamers about Live's status via his site and his Twitter feed, gamers will have a harder time figuring out just how well Live is working. When asked where gamers should go for status updates, Microsoft's Dennis said, "We will be communicating with our customers through our normal channels, such as Xbox.com and other means." Full Story: mtv.com

[Blakamiss48]

Wow sueing Microsoft for not having LIVE. The people Suing are "Virgins for Life" for caring only about video games and xbox live.

[llsTixll]

I don't think it's about the video games, it's about the service.  Sure, XBOX LIVE is not that expensive, but that's not the point.  To pay money to a massive company like Microsoft then not receive the service that you pay for is not acceptable.

Good on 'em for sticking it to them.

[794]

interesting information to compliment the recent news announcement about the lawsuit - this actually makes more sense now.

not all outages can be predicted, but if MS failed to provide reasonable means to support the demand of new subscribers, then they are definitely to blame.  if indeed that is true, then hopefully this is at least a small step toward accountability for MS.

[Moonkeeper]

Dividing the $5/month fee by the time lost, we aren't owed very much. MS response of giving us a free arcade game was more then what they had to do. Class action lawsuits are the ultimate proof that trial lawyers are expert lobbiers.

[bobz9]

im pissed about this whole xbl thing, that guy has it right "they take money for a service that sometimes isnt there"

I expect some kind of compensation for it not working.  and a free game off xbl arcade is not compensation.  Thats kinda like getting hurt at McDonalds and they give you one of those McD's Monopoly things.

[JBmtk]

QUOTE(llsTixll @ Jan 16 2008, 08:52 PM)

I don't think it's about the video games, it's about the service.  Sure, XBOX LIVE is not that expensive, but that's not the point.  To pay money to a massive company like Microsoft then not receive the service that you pay for is not acceptable.

Good on 'em for sticking it to them.

I fully agree. Forget the money issue...its that fact that Microsoft was too stupid enough to make sure their service works fully even in high demand needs...like Christmas. Major Nelson and all those other ppl who were given updates on the problem were just simply stalling and who knows if they were telling the truth. Point is, its crap and people who simply give up on it and say, "ah, it only costs me a few $" are idiots and are not using their rights and ruining it for the rest

[sabbath_dude]

"These are not guys looking to get rich," yeah right!  (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif) . Its a waste of time and money trying to sue a massive company like Microsoft for something like this. I'm sure they have themselves well covered in the Xbox Live TOS small print for service outages.

This post has been edited by sabbath_dude: Jan 17 2008, 03:31 AM

[feflicker]

I don't believe their is a "guarantee of service" in the contract you enter when you sign up for Live. This case is going nowhere fast. It's like me suing Cox because the internet went down for an hour last week...

Could you imagine how difficult it would be to 100% guarantee technology will work? I'm sure MS$ will be able to prove that they took appropriate actions in advance in anticipation of a problem, and appropriate actions in resolving the problem. These guys are wasting the courts time...

[SilentKilla]

QUOTE(Blakamiss48 @ Jan 17 2008, 02:40 AM)

Wow sueing Microsoft for not having LIVE. The people Suing are "Virgins for Life" for caring only about video games and xbox live.

exactly what I was thinking... lol.. dude if xbl is down just take you girlfriend out and have a couple of fun weeks  (IMG:style_emoticons/default/jester.gif)  cable service drops out, internet does also, the best you might get is a couple of free months. Services you pay for still run into problems. We pay taxes, public services do not work 100% of the time.

[SueMiBlitch]

ohhhh... these aren't 18 year old morons suing for fun, but rather college educated 20 to 30 year olds...

so which community college did they go to?

sure i was frustrated that i couldn't get on live, but hell i used that time to do other things... i don't think the norm is to sue companies when your phone, cellphone, TV, power or such goes down... and you get f'all out if any of that happens. I will be happy with a free arcade game and would think that because of this problem M$ will do something above and beyond what would have been done to the status of the server before this happens

at least they have the dencency to sue for all of us and pocket the 5mil... douchebags

[Tony42077]

Let's see 5 million minus the 80% that the lawyers take divided by 3... $333,333 to each of them for 2 weeks of intermittent Xbox Live outages. Not a bad return on a $400 investment. But they aren't suing for fun, that's what people do when they are 18. They are just looking to not work for the next 5 years because they couldn't play Halo 3 with each other for a week. I love this country.

[Zod5000]

Its kind of depressing.  We all screw up at some point or another, some of our jobs have worse consequence then others when we screw up.  But it happens to everyone.

So some guy working for XBOX Live probably figured they'd have enough bandwidth or server power or what not, messed up.

Sure it sucked that live got sketchy for a while, but its not the end of the world.  I'm all for cutting people/companies a little slack (unless they take it to far).  

I think some people think, everyone else is perfect, but at some deep down level, everything is run by people, created by people, and mistakes happen, don't have to pounce on everyone when someone/company f*cks up.

[fiya]

are we so spoilt that if you dont have XBL for a few days, its a national emergency?

Seriously, get into politics and aim your energy at something that really makes a difference in your community and standard of living. PRIORITIES!!!

they make me embarrassed to be gamer

I just don't understand this, maybe cause i live in a third world country. We get blackouts often and we dont sue! I mean shit happens, get over it!

I mean the service has been perfect up until now and this is how u react?

They apologized and offered compensation...what more do u want them to do?

[hyfall381]

who the hell came up with the amount $5million? i could see if they wanted their $50 back for what live costs for 1 year... but $5million?  fkn stupid.

this wont work because if they actually won this case, me and everyone else who had the same issues could sue for $5mill each, which would really hurt ms.  

most lawyers are full of shit because they only see dollar signs. these guys are just looking for some easy money and of course, the lawyers will back em up for that paycheck!