Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has been attacked with quite a number of criticisms lately. Just last week, a class action lawsuit was filed in a Florida court alleging that Microsoft negligently manufactured the Xbox 360 console in a way that causes the expensive game discs to be scratched, rendering the games unusable.
Just this Monday, a similar case was filed in the U.S. District Court for Southern California by two residents of the state: Christine Moskowitz and Dan Wood. The lawsuit is seeking not less than $5 million in damages for Xbox 360 buyers affected by the alleged glitch.
Moskowitz said in the California court filing that in March 2006, she bought for her son an Xbox 360, along with the popular games Gears of War, Crackdown, and Saints Row. Within a few months of using the game discs, they bore circular scratch marks and wouldn’t work properly.
Wood, on the other hand, said that he purchased an Xbox 360 last December. The unit then damaged his copy of Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell.
Both plaintiffs claim that the Xbox 360 console damaged their discs and that Microsoft refused to replace the ruined games or pay for them.
Prior to these events, Microsoft acknowledged that a hardware defect in the console was leading to “an unacceptable number” of general hardware failures. To address the problem, Microsoft is extending the warranty period on the units by three years.
However, the company made no mention of a disc scratching problem. Microsoft spokesman told InformationWeek that the company has not received a significant number of complaints about scratched discs, despite the fact that "there are millions of Xbox consoles in use."