Summary: Microsoft’s Xbox 360 scratching issue makes it to the Supreme Court.
Although Microsoft replaced the Xbox 360 with the Xbox One, their headaches over the previous unit and its hardware troubles continue. Not only did if face the “Red Ring of Death” problem, but another suit, which began seven years ago, has made its way to the Supreme Court, Forbes reports. The question is whether the Xbox 360 scratches discs with small jerks of its optical drive. Complainants claim Microsoft knew about this problem in 2005 but chose to release their system without fixing it. Microsoft counters that disc scratching is due solely to user error, and only .4 percent of users are affected, which doesn’t justify a class-action suit.
The console did come with warnings that the unit shouldn’t be moved while the disc was spinning. Many users claim their discs were scratched and rendered unreadable without even touching the unit.
A federal judge dismissed the class-action suit in 2012, claiming there weren’t enough complaints to justify it, but a federal appeals court reversed this shortly after.
The case has finally made its way to the Supreme Court. They agreed last Friday to hear Microsoft’s last attempt to avoid a class-action suit. Microsoft says that individual claims from defendants have been thrown out so far, and so the group claim should be thrown out as well. The Supreme Court will decide if Microsoft has to face a class-action suit.
Source: Forbes