Microsoft faces class action lawsuit due to Xbox Live outages

by Griffin McElroy { Jan 5th 2008 at 5:30PM }

It appears that a sincere apology and the promise of a free arcade game aren't enough to satisfy the unbridled rage of some Xbox Live users suffering from frequent outages -- three Texas residents slapped Microsoft with a class action lawsuit yesterday, claiming that the disruption of the service over the holidays is a breach of the Xbox Live Terms of Use contract. The suit claims the damages suffered from the outages exceed $5 million.

While we usually scoff at class action lawsuits for seemingly petty reasons, the plaintiffs have an excellent point -- Microsoft must have expected an influx of server-taxing Xbox Live subscribers around the holidays, yet they "failed to provide adequate access and service to Xbox Live and its subscribers." The ball appears to be in your court, Microsoft -- that better be one hell of a free arcade game.

Tags: ClassAction, LiveArcade, Microsoft, Texas, Xbox, Xbox360, XboxLive

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)

OTAM @ Jan 5th 2008 5:34PM

How about while Live is acting up we just go read a nice book?

Maybe take the dog for a walk?

Sillines @ Jan 5th 2008 5:37PM

How about not?

This is what happens when there's too little support of a good thing.

BIGGEN @ Jan 5th 2008 5:39PM

here here!! fortunately, super mario galaxy has kept me busy, so i haven't even noticed the outages except for one night, but i went right back to, ya know, doing something else.

i do feel for the newer subscribers. i think that would piss me off too, but not enough to sue.

Tim @ Jan 5th 2008 5:46PM

Its annoying, yes. Possibly even a breach of contract on Microsoft's side (though i would err on the side of reasonable doubt and say a mistake), but there is no way it is $5m worth of damages.

If any, its about $2 a person maximum. Unless they want to claim that they were somehow monetarily or emotionally damaged by not being able to play on Live for a week and a half, and thats assuming they were unlucky enough to be in the group of people for whom live wasnt working every day. And if they try and say that, thats really pathetic.

Seriously, Im a Live gold subscriber myself, and yes it was annoying, but come on. Things happen, and there are other things you can do - PC gaming, single player, read a book, do something with people you actually see, etc etc etc

jynxycat @ Jan 5th 2008 6:10PM

In the TOS for Live, it says that the most they would ever have to pay out is the fee for one month of service, and not anymore.

That being said, the TOS also says the Xbox Live gives no guarantee as to when it will be online.

You honestly think Microsoft wouldn't cover their asses in case Live went down for awhile and got sued for millions of dollars ?

LordMinogue @ Jan 5th 2008 6:34PM

I didn't even notice; I don't really use my live subscription anymore. This coupled with the "Social Engineering" crisis (sweet talking Customer Support into giving out your credit card number) have convinced me to terminate my gold account when it runs out this February. Hopefully I'll get my free game before then...

Ignatius @ Jan 5th 2008 7:26PM

Er. Why don't you just go out and buy the 13 month cards like a reasonable person? You get an extra month for the same price. O.o;

Not to mention you wouldn't have your credit card on file.

ill trooper @ Jan 5th 2008 10:19PM

Someone always comes on and posts your sort of comment whenever LIVE goes down - "Jeez people, get a life, go outside, blah blah..." But I disagree - That's you judging other's use of a service with your own criteria for use of a service. If play on LIVE all the time, sure, yeah, you could probably use the break. But if you were only able to play on LIVE during the time period it went dead, because you had just been "reading a book" or "walking the dog" all week, then you'd be pissed.

I agree that a lawsuit is extreme, but people pay for a service, it didn't work, and they have a right to be upset

Just because it happened at a time when it didn't really matter to YOU doesn't mean it wasn't someone else's big tournament weekend, or the weekend the wife was out of town, or the weekend you were going to rent an HD movie from LIVE, or the weekend you were back from Iraq or something...

Tim @ Jan 5th 2008 11:16PM

ill trooper, i understand what you're saying, but please dont assume thats the case with me. It was down during 11 days of the prime time for me to play. I tried to be on Live every day it was down, and couldnt get on most of the time, while out of school for christmas.

So I was affected, i just think its insane to take it this far.

jojo @ Jan 5th 2008 5:43PM

I don't care so much about Live being down, it happens and they are working hard to fix it. But the DRM scheme they use in which I have to be online to play my arcade games (because I'm on my third console since launch) needs to be fixed. I should be able to play games I bought, not rented, when I want. Not when Live is working perfectly and the connection on my end is working perfectly.

Obie @ Jan 5th 2008 5:46PM

Agreed, their DRM scheme sucks major ass.

Evil Bastard @ Jan 5th 2008 6:04PM

I certainly would not have bought any virtual console games for the Wii if it relied on being connected to the internet (except for online play).

Slaziman (B-B-BRUSHED WITH FAAAAME) @ Jan 5th 2008 6:09PM

I heard that if you delete your arcade games and redownload them, that problem is fixed.

jojo @ Jan 5th 2008 6:31PM

@slaziman - I just tried deleting one my arcade games, redownloading it, and disconnecting from Live. Once I'm disconnected, I can only play the demo version. It was worth a shot though :)

JakubK666 @ Jan 5th 2008 7:04PM

I don't play arcade but have you tried to "unlock" the demo?

embassy @ Jan 5th 2008 7:34PM

thats my *only* problem with LIVE. that entire DRM scheme for arcarde games is effing retarded.

there has to be a more consumer-friendly way of verifying legitimate XBLA game purcahses.

Obie @ Jan 5th 2008 5:43PM

Aren't class action suits kinda silly? Lets say we win the suit, all we would get is probably a check for $25.
I rather M$ learn its lesson, stop charging for the service...oh and don't forget my free XBLA game!

Mike @ Jan 5th 2008 5:49PM

You wont get $25 it would be $5 or something like that, giving away a free arcade agme will cost more than that anyway

Neebs @ Jan 5th 2008 5:44PM

Greedy twits. Take your game.

I'm no capitalist but you are retarded if you aren't happy now and plan to join the class.

Platinum_Skeet @ Jan 5th 2008 11:37PM

America's sad now people always want to get something for nothing. If that old woman never got burnt with the coffee at McDonald's how different would our world be?

MrGam3r @ Jan 6th 2008 11:10AM

these people are just bastards looking for an excuse for a free buck. I mean, how could their "damages exceed five million dollars?" They pay 95 CENTS a week for the xbox live service. this is completely ridiculous......are they suing for emotional distress or something?

Radon199 @ Jan 5th 2008 5:45PM

It's no different than if your cable went out for half a month but still you were paying for it. It's just something that shouldn't happen if you are supplying a service such as this. Why should live be any different?

Tim @ Jan 5th 2008 5:49PM

Its actually completely different.

For one thing, Live costs less than one month of cable TV.

Secondly, its more akin to on-demand cable not working. You can still play single player, or split screen, or system link with Live down. And it was intermittent and isolated.

Im not defending microsoft, they made a mistake, but thats a big exaggeration.

mike @ Jan 5th 2008 6:30PM

Its nothing like on demand cable. Your confusing the xbox 360 from xbox live. Playing single player, split screen or system link has absolutly nothing to do with xbox live. I can say the same thing about your television. If your cable goes out you can still watch movies, recorded tv and play games on your tv.

I pay for my xbl service to play online games and download stuff off marketplace. If I cant do those things, Im paying for nothing.

Tim @ Jan 5th 2008 6:40PM

Point taken, but the complaint still reflects about $2 of lost payment for the time it was down. Microsoft is more than compensating for that with a 600-800MP game, no?

And my point was not that the payment for xbl affects using the 360 - i know it doesnt, i subscribe to gold myself - my point was that not having xbl is not completely preventing you from playing your games, or even playing against other people, and therefore its only an annoyance, not something worth $5m

FrankTheCrank @ Jan 5th 2008 5:45PM

Get ready for Microsoft to open up that big wallet of their's and hook all those "affected" with more freebies. Those with silver accounts can go eat poo.

RROD, XBOX Dead and now their talking about a new XBOX?

WTF?

BIGGEN @ Jan 5th 2008 6:01PM

they talk about the next console before the current one is even out anymore. but "they" aren't the companies that make them. "they" are rumor churners like 'stiq, G4, gamedaily, etc. let's face it, there is so little gaming news that "they" have to come up with something to talk about.

jack in the xbox @ Jan 5th 2008 9:04PM

Frank, Frank, Frank...PLEASE STOP MAKING SENSE!!! THEY HATE THAT IN HERE. You go and start pointing things out to these people and they go and call you names. Now once again...RED RING OF DEATH...SCRATCHED DISCS...CLUNKY DISC DRIVES...LOUD FANS...REPLACEMENT UNITS OFTEN OLDER THAN THE ORIGINALLY PURCHASED ONES AFTER UP TO 2 WEEKS OF WAITING...XBL DOWN FOR 2 WEEKS AT XMAS TIME...CANT EVEN PLAY PURCHASED GAMES WITHOUT LOGGING IN WITH IDIOT TAG...DRM...NO HDMI THEN, OKAY HDMI and on and on and on. Trust me Frank, they won't listen to logic.

Brandon @ Jan 5th 2008 5:47PM

This type of thing is rediculous to me. Unless they specifically have acted in bad faith (and that is a very tall order with no support over their 3+ year track record) with regards to the service trying to claim any damages, let alone up to *5 million* is just stupid greedy American's trying to get over on a company because they think they can. While I think the best way to resolve any outages is to provide equal or more number of "free days" on the end of an existing agreement (ala WoW when it had problems during launch), I hope the judge throws this out on its ass and finds a way to punish the plantiff's with wasting the courts time and harassment of a company acting in good faith.

That Joystiq seems to support the lawsuit even tacitly is rather disappointing. I normally don't pay much attention to who wrote a given piece but I'll know to watch out for GM now.

aristokrat @ Jan 5th 2008 6:15PM

Your spelling of ridiculous is ridiculous.

Brandon @ Jan 5th 2008 6:18PM

Yeah, my spelling sux bigtyme. Sawry.

Brandon @ Jan 5th 2008 10:22PM

Whatever, I've had an X360 since launch and never had a problem with it, so while the RROD issues are real not every console is in some "constant state of repair". Besides, this article and the lawsuit isn't about the RROD issue, its about XBL going down for a week. So thanks for the tangent but do try to stay on topic if you can.

Unfortunately our society has became so lawsuit happy every since that old lady sued McDonalds because when she spilled her cofee on her lap it was hot and her cup wasn't labled "HOT". This is why when you see commercials with any even remotely dangerous stunt they have to put the label "Professional stunt driver, don't try this at home" because they are afraid they will be sued by some idiot because they didn't warn them first not to be idiots. Its ridiculous (thanks aristokrat!) what has become to our personal responsibility in this country, but thats a tangential topic as well.

As to calling me a baffoon, well, man..you're a meanie. :P I mean sure, its true, but what's your point?

Slaziman (B-B-BRUSHED WITH FAAAAME) @ Jan 6th 2008 2:35AM

Bah, google that McDonalds story, I bet you'll get a thousand results on how it wasn't such a crazy lawsuit after all, with plenty of arguments.

glutto @ Jan 6th 2008 2:57AM

Buffoon.
It's buffoon.

Brandon @ Jan 6th 2008 9:17AM

re: Glutto

Ah, but he was namecalling me after the rare South American Baffoon, which is reknown the world over for its intelligence, dignity, and grace. Right Jack?

:)

Either that or I'm not alone in my inability to spell, thank you glutto!!!! :)

horngreen @ Jan 5th 2008 6:02PM

Jesus people it's not a dialysis machine IT'S A TOY! Take your arcade game and get on with your life...Oh wait you don't have one do you? Your life is LIVE and that is why you are STILL filled with rage over this. This will hurt MS and LIVE more than we know. All those people signing in with a free 48 hour trial that came with a game probably thought "$50 a year for this crappy service" and bailed. Five years with rarely a hiccup and when it happens people come unglued.

Qraze @ Jan 5th 2008 6:03PM

these three guys are the lowest scum imaginably, and no matter what system you have you probably agree. find their gamer tags and blast them. i would had i had a 360. fncking bottom feeders. just like the coffee to hot suit, but their were at least in a little pain. i mean their is a whole world out their and they probably never tried to sue that bully that picked on them causing real damage. i could expect if your system burnt your house down or even that whole rrod thing, and one dude is on his third 360, that's more of a capable lawsuit than than these three twits. i just find it sad that's all, it's a bad rap for gamers in general and i hope the media don't try to blame all gamers for these no-life losers.

konajinx @ Jan 5th 2008 9:00PM

Wow...is "there" and "their" really that tricky for people anymore? You see both of them wrongly transposed for each other all the time.

Qraze @ Jan 5th 2008 9:32PM

what's your point there webster, so what if i use one word for another. with all the internet lingo you point out a grammar spelling. wow i didn't know there was a test. ya still understand the point right? go and teach your grammar in school. your a troll. ya didn't bring anything up related to the topic. so just read and leave, ya added nothing.

Qraze @ Jan 5th 2008 9:45PM

dude your nerd in the ninth degree. and another thing if f@h helps to treat or cure one disease then the system will have far surpassed anything any console has ever done period. you make fun of something that works to benefit all mankind. if i met you,i would kick your fncking a$$. you can't be a real man, so what are you a little boy. your a real P.O.S. buddy. really

Qraze @ Jan 5th 2008 10:38PM

see koonjinx is a troll, i bashed him and no response. koon-you know what that word means? you racist pig. is your last name hitler or judas?just wondering if you'll respond to that.

SoxFan13 @ Jan 5th 2008 11:26PM

Now you're confusing "your" with "you're." Super Grammar Troll at YOUR service!

SoxFan13 @ Jan 5th 2008 11:30PM

Oh yeah, why was Judas (last name Iscariot by the way) a racist? Was he racist against all Jesuses?

Qraze @ Jan 5th 2008 11:39PM

oh changed your name.still haven't brought up anything near the topic. fncking pnssy, what are you even doing in here anyway. correcting peoples grammar. good way to make friends huh? ya in granny's basement jerkin' off? your sick dude. that's nasty. what?you wanna do what with that watermelon? that's disguising

SoxFan13 @ Jan 6th 2008 7:37AM

I don't even know this kona guy- I just responded to you because you were being ridiculous.

Now, since I didn't bring up anything near the topic, here's the real deal. Just as you said it's their right to bring a lawsuit against a company that is not providing the service they are contracted for. Just because many people on this board find this service to be expendable, that doesn't take Microsoft off the hook for making sure it's working properly. If the lawsuit is frivilous, then the judge will throw it out, and these three will be out some money for the lawyer and filings.

jynxycat @ Jan 5th 2008 6:07PM

--
16. WE MAKE NO WARRANTY
We provide the Service "as-is," "with all faults" and "as available." The Microsoft Parties give no express warranties, guarantees or conditions. You may have additional consumer rights under your local laws that this contract cannot change. To the extent permitted by law, we exclude the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, workmanlike effort and non-infringement.
--

They lose.

Read those 15 page agreements before you accept them next time.