No judge on the nation’s largest federal appeals court voted in favor of a rehearing.
Advertisement
Unless Microsoft appeals that to the U.S. Supreme Court, the case is set to proceed in federal district court, where it may become a class action.
The case actually goes all the way back to 2007.
Following Rawlinson’s ruling, the 9th Circuit returned the case to Judge Martinez, and as a result, Microsoft will now have to face the class action claims as presented to the court. It alleges that discs within the optical drive are “unable to withstand even the smallest of vibrations, and that during normal game playing conditions discs spin out of control and crash into internal console components, resulting in scratched discs that are rendered permanently unplayable”.
Back in 2008, a Microsoft program manager, Hiroo Umeno, indicated that the company was aware of the damage that the Xbox 360’s drive caused to game discs, according to unsealed court documents.
The class-action against Microsoft aims to establish whether disc scratches were made due to consumer misuse, or because the Xbox 360 suffered a design flaw. The technology company’s plea for the court to rehear the case on the grounds the issue is not a design flaw but one of consumer misuse that only affected.4% of Xbox 360 owners, has been refused.
The disc scratching problem didn’t get as much media attention as the loathed red ring of death, over which Microsoft also faced a class action lawsuit several years ago.
Microsoft has released its Q4 financial report, posting a $2.1 billion loss.
Advertisement
So what is Microsoft doing to improve all these problems? It’s notable that this increase comes as the Xbox 360 effectively ends its commercial lifespan. Unfortunately for the company, no judges at all agreed with them which means that they may have to face a class action lawsuit after all. It’s really quite depressing.
