Man sues Microsoft over alleged Xbox 360 glitch

By budda on Tuesday, December 6th, 2005 comments

The proposed class action suit claims that in Microsoft's bid to gain share in the $25 billion global video game market, the company was so intent on releasing the Xbox 360 before competing next-generation machines from Sony and Nintendo that it sold a "defectively designed" product.

Robert Byers, who brought the suit, said the power supply and central processing unit in the Xbox 360 overheat, affecting heat-sensitive chips and causing the console to lock up.

Console owners reported that some systems had crashed during regular use, as well as during online gameplay using the Xbox Live service. Problems included screens going black and the appearance of a variety of error messages.

At the time, a Microsoft spokeswoman told Reuters: "We have received a few isolated reports of consoles not working as expected."

She declined to say how many reports Microsoft had received and said that calls reporting the issue to the company represented a "very, very small fraction" of units sold.

The lawsuit, filed on Friday in federal court in Illinois, seeks unspecified damages and litigation-related expenses, as well as the replacement or recall of Xbox 360 game consoles.

Many of you will have X360s by now - have you had any issues with them? Do yours overheat or are they fine?