Microsoft sued over Xbox Live outage

  • By Ina Fried, News.com
  • Posted Jan 4, 2008 6:33 pm PT

Irate gamers demand over $5 million in damages following slate of reported problems over holidays.

From News.com

Microsoft now faces a lawsuit over recent problems with its Xbox Live online gaming service. Three Texas residents filed a lawsuit Friday on behalf of themselves and others who have had trouble connecting to Xbox Live in recent weeks.

The suit, filed in US District Court in Houston, claims Microsoft's outages represent a breach of contract and negligent misrepresentation for which the software maker is liable. The suit doesn't claim specific damages, but notes the amount is in excess of $5 million.

In the suit, the plaintiffs allege that Microsoft should have known strong holiday sales would tax its servers. "Microsoft knew the increase in subscriptions would increase game-play on its servers, yet failed to provide adequate access and service to Xbox Live and its subscribers," read the filing.

Microsoft has apologized for the outage and said it would allow Xbox live subscribers to download a free game. A Microsoft representative was not immediately available for comment.

1584 Comments

  • JakeYourself

    Posted Sep 20, 2009 1:50 pm PT

    @incred_davis

    this whole issue was over a year ago. And i don't know what you are smoking but you do not need to be connected to live to play oblivion and access your saved game files....so....you're retarded.

  • incred_davis

    Posted Feb 1, 2009 8:05 am PT

    all u guys saying were stupid for being mad are the dumbest people in the world. i cant play anything without being online for my saved games duh, until i get online i cant recover all the saved data off my profile, therefore my 360 is useless. i have dlc in every game that i have saved...that means if i play offline it tells me i need to be online for my saves not to corrupt. makes me mad enough to sue them and i hope microsoft goes bankrupt. my box is a paperweight until live comes back. unless i start every game over again. why shouldnt ppl like me be mad again? im not starting oblivion after 200 hrs cuz msoft dropped the ball again for the sixth time. this screws me every way possible.

  • Guitar-Dunnie

    Posted Mar 21, 2008 6:36 pm PT

    What happened to our game?! It's been three months!

  • BelatedNoob

    Posted Feb 25, 2008 12:57 pm PT

    lol

  • Xaviersx

    Posted Jan 31, 2008 6:09 pm PT

    What's the Live track record for service? What do other companies do when their service goes 'out' like the lights (web e-mail services, your ISP, the phone, television station(s) or cable)? Is lawsuit the remedy in such, or is it the remedy in dealing with Microsoft? What can Microsoft learn from the Sony online gaming network, or the Nintendo service? When should a lawsuit be filed? Who died because Xbox Live went down, or 911 wasn't operating intown properly.

    Can't we all get along, . . or at least a pile a cash in the dash?

  • Burnout_Avenged

    Posted Jan 17, 2008 12:49 pm PT

    Microsoft deserved it for making their online features costly. Sony ftw!

  • Game_Druggy

    Posted Jan 17, 2008 7:13 am PT

    Im glad that i havnt got live set up yet

  • alejandrosimms

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 6:49 am PT

    I find this utterly ridiculous. It's quite obvious that the Microsoft and Xbox Live team knew the holidays would increase users, but they have been nothing but excellent towards gamers since day one. The servers were slow for 2 weeks. If anyone has a serious problem with that, a big enough problem to sue for 5 million, they need to take a break from their Xbox and go out and get some sun. I played my Xbox a lot over the holidays, and experienced these issues, and didn't have any big problems with it.

    The Xbox Live team has been nothing but apologetic, sincerely so, and is offering everyone a free game. Since Xbox Live costs 5 bucks a month, a two week downtime (not even down... just slow) costs us $2.50. Stop complaining, accept their apology, and take the free $5.00 game.

  • TheDeceitful

    Posted Jan 14, 2008 6:19 pm PT

    This is what we call legitimate legal pigeon-holding. These 3 guys probably knew and since everyone knows, or should know, the Terms of Use and Contractual Agreement they are thry to capitolize on it. I say since most legal bouts, short of federal degree in felonies, are public record. Get they're names, contact their lawyers, and file a petition against the suit for it's frugle nature. It's ansurd and abusing the rights of our judicial system.

    5 million amongst probably 10 people that have come forward on they're behalf (probably friend's)? It affects all us..... Shouldn't we get a split if we ALL we're inconvenienced. But, by law, their suit and money is their own. So, even if they're nature is pure (which I doubt), they shoulf file for ALL XBL users.

    I agree Tsunami. Why don't we ALL sue the next company that has a buggy game? Better yet, let's attack and sue the testers who let the bugs get by them.

  • Tsunami_pt

    Posted Jan 14, 2008 5:51 pm PT

    This is absurd! Just because 3 dudes cant play what they want they sue a company for 5M $??? Only in the USA, man. Only in the USA... This is ridiculous. Anyone can be sued for anything nowadays. Why dont they sue game companies for bugs in games, btw? It "disturbs my game experience", so I should get 5M $ as a compensation!

    What MS should do to compensate users is to give 1 month of Xbox Live service free, as Blizzard usually does in gaming days when they have a problem with servers.

    But this? FFS, guys... Look at how ridiculous you are... I hope you loose the lawsuit and spend a LOT of money on it, instead of becoming rich from human being's flaws. You disgust me!

  • DecadesOfGaming

    Posted Jan 13, 2008 7:46 am PT

    what a shame ! so some individuals could'nt play a game or two over christmas.. Just shows you how small minded and ignorant some people are when it comes to compensation and sueing in today's politically incorrect society.. set of greedy muppets... I hope they get run over by a bus on the way to court.

  • The_Gr8_Leon

    Posted Jan 11, 2008 3:29 pm PT

    They can't read a book or something?

  • CrashMacKenzie

    Posted Jan 10, 2008 7:10 pm PT

    I still can't get on XBL. Anyone else still having trouble?

  • hart704

    Posted Jan 10, 2008 1:55 pm PT

    This is another reason why I don't want an X360. I don't want to pay for something that is free elsewhere and isn't reliable. That goes for both the Live service and the red-ringed-cursed system.

    This problem has been ongoing since Xmas day. How long does it take Microsoft?

    A free mystery arcade game isn't good enough. Customers are having problems with the Live service itself so they should get a free month of that. Once it's fixed, of course.

  • S_Pac_316

    Posted Jan 9, 2008 3:39 pm PT

    Boo Hoo Hooo! Geez, they are going to give us a free game to compensate for the outage. What more do they want?

  • lamprey263

    Posted Jan 9, 2008 3:06 pm PT

    It'd probably be a lot cheaper (or very comparable) for Microsoft to settle one class action lawsuit for $5 million than it would for them to pay XBLA developers money for millions of downloaded games. Anyhow, for a company making $14 billion in net profit this year alone, this is nothing for them to worry about.

  • buffdaddy69

    Posted Jan 9, 2008 10:33 am PT

    "limitless_rage buffdaddy69 - its one thing for your internet to be down for a few hours, or your cable going out due to a storm. Its completely different when a company that charges you for a traditionally free service to go down not because of an act of nature, but because they didn't beef up their servers. Microsoft knew how many potential xbl subscribers there were out there(as they are the ONLY company that makes the 360), and they chose not to do anything until it was too late. That is their fault. So that is an unfair comparison. And besides, even when those other services go out, they are only down for days at the max ... not weeks. As far as how anyone can actually be paying for a service that doesn't live up to how its advertised and not be upset about it is beyond me. If your mechanic charged you $500 to fix your radiator, and then just didn't do anything, wouldn't you be mad? Why is it that since its microsoft, they get a free pass on this? Fact is that this company took our money to give us a service and didn't deliver. While i don't think anyone should get $5 million, all of us should get an extra month of live for the downtime. If your cable went out for 3 weeks, the cable company would at least give you a discount on the next month. Not give you some crappy xbla game that literally is free for them to let you have. And for everyone out there so upset that people are sueing microsoft, I would bet that if it were sony you would be all fired up. Plus, as far as the terms of service go, while they clearly say that xbox live is not guaranteed 100% of the time, no where does it say that it can be down for 75% of the time(which is how long it was down during the month of december) and since there are plenty of people out there who buy 1 month cards, they are clearly in breach of their own terms of service. Besides the original xbox (which mine is STILL working fine) and xp (which microsoft has completely stopped selling), microsoft has put out garbage products. example: windows 95, 98, ME, 360 red rings issues, etc. I think its time that they had to stand behind their products, flaws and all."

    So...you said "its one thing for your internet to be down, or for your phone to be down....but when you pay for something like Xbox live its different" ? So you dont pay the phone companies to use your house phones or cell phones and you dont pay your internent service provider to use the internet that your using to be on here and b**ch about Xbox live? Did you notice how dumb that makes you sound? You say Microsoft is in breach of their terms of service? How? Because they suffered an everyday computer problem that millions of corporations and other forms of buisness and house holds go through every day? Thats not being in breach of anything. Thats just a computer problem that they are able to fix, but it will take them time because if there is a problem with a few of their servers, then they are going to check all of their servers for the same problem just to make sure Live doesnt go back down again for the same bulls**t I own a Super Nintendo, but Nintendo doesnt make Super Nintendo games anymore, so your basically saying its ok for me to sue NIntendo because they are in breach of there service for not making Super Nintendo games anymore. And you say Microsoft puts out garbage products, yet you brought an Xbox 360.. Im assuming you did anyway with how your b**ching about it and its services not living up to its full potential. If Microsoft put out garbage products, then Bill Gates wouldnt be one of the Richest men in the world, But He is, because people still buy windows and any other form of microsoft product because Microsoft is a name people are very familiar with when it comes to computers and buisnesses. So they arent putting out garbage if they are still in buisness.

  • fantasyx92

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 7:39 pm PT

    Wow, just wow. People are stupid, not only the story itself, but the whole argument going on in the comments part of this story. Sure the service went down, your getting a free game worth about $5, thats pretty sweet for most of you who didn't get a chance to play anyways, and for all of you who had nothing better to do. Yet, a lot of you still expect more? Microsoft owes you NOTHING. Their service went down constantly for a 2 week period, you have no idea, compared to most MMO's and portion of STEAM's life being much, MUCH worse.

    Also, the Internet was built by more than just one person, built by many scientist worldwide co-operating. However! Most of it was done in the United States by Americans. But who cares! Its Internet, we can all use it, and until someone invents something that blocks off all of the stupid people in the world(Example: the three idiots sueing), we just have to deal with them, just like everyone else.


    Also, YEA ORANGE BOX, that is all.

  • mrtrixxxter

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 7:09 pm PT

    i can only suggest that if your going to sue a company, even if it is Microsoft, just because you cant play a game online that you are frickin' stupid. there is more to life than videogames.... wait ..... WHAT THE HELL. . I am now going to stand up and sue the pants off of three ignorant Texans for severe emotional distress for making such a thought go through my brain. i can't hold a controller any more from the emotional pain. even more so for making me defend Microsoft.

    seriously, get a life. you're going to ruin it for us all with this crap. Dammnit people like this make me crazy. if i find out who you are i will slap the stupid out of you with my pimp hand. and no not all Texans are ignorant, don't even try to pin that on me.

  • Nyx220

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 7:02 pm PT

    Gamers are allready getting enough stick over age rating laws dont start making companies fear sever problems we need to be suporting our companies and understanding that the companies actually are doing all they can to keep these system running as best as they can otherwsie there losing money.

    Filing law suits is just gonna make big company directors think twice before signing deals. "what if the gamers sue if your game cant hack server loads". Filing for a suit in this case is just suing Mircosoft for not expecting to be so dam good. If anything its nice to see that Microsoft arnt full of themselves knowing that they are the best.

    Next time a server is down, you three texans, play offline like gamers like your predocesors and quit whinning and get over it worse things could have happened. and the gamers affected dont need the 50 cents they'll get each from this Suit

  • Shivercraft

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 6:05 pm PT

    Do any of you know what a "class-action lawsuit" entails?

    The Texans suing will not see the money, it will go to every person that was affected by the experience. As much as you are downing them, the guys are actually doing this as a favor to you Live members as a lesson for Microsoft to either A) Make darn sure their networks work

    B) Realize they are monetarily obligated to fully their end of the contract they make each of you sign to become a member of Live and step up to the plate and offer some kind of reimbursement.

    The free download only came out after the lawsuit was filed.

  • mhitman

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 5:16 pm PT

    for god's sake you dont always have to play online

  • Matdredalia

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 3:42 pm PT

    You know....it's sad when I'm starting to classify my fellow gamers as being in the same a$$hat category as Jack Thompson.

    Severs go down. I can't count the times WoW, EQ, EQII, etc. have been down for hours, days, whatever. It happens. These companies can only do so many tests and there is no way to predict what will happen when you have 600,000 people trying to flood the server. I would bet money that Microsoft DID try to prevent this from happening, but their measures still weren't enough. It has happened many, many times before with online services. It certainly doesn't warrant a law suit.

    I'm sorry but things happen. Get over yourselves and go read a book. You're making the rest of us look bad.

  • jakob_187

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 3:29 pm PT

    @Valek1394:

    Sir, a free arcade game is definitely NOT adequate payment. Microsoft knew there would be problems, and they did nothing to fix it in order to gain a bigger profit margin for their news stories post-Xmas. In turn, you are only looking at the three Texans in this that are suing. You aren't looking at a broader spectrum...like I am.

    First off...when you are paying for a product, and it has problems, are you just going to sit back and say "oh well, it has problems"? We're not talking about lag, man. We're talking about server disconnections, loss of stats due to these issues, and flat-out not being able to use the service that we paid for. This wasn't because of some big mishap outage. This was because Microsoft neglected to offer enough server space for the influx of XBL users due to holiday sales of their consoles and games.

    Also...what about gaming centers? If anything, there should be a class action lawsuit going out from gaming centers due to loss of profits. At the gaming center I work at, we lost around $300 worth of business a DAY just because of XBL's problems. That creates two problems.

    1. Do you think the people coming in are going to blame MS for that problem? NO. We provide the Xbox 360s and the games, as well as the T1 line. Despite that, they are going to blame us for XBL problems.

    2. Parties and lock-ins that were booked in advance where people were expecting to get on Live...couldn't do it.

    Therefore, this wasn't just a problem that affected three Texans. This is a problem that affected MILLIONS, and luckily, we have three Texans that are willing to jump up and say "hey, guess what, MS...we're not going to take your negligence lightly". These guys are doing what needs to be done: showing MS that their dedication to creating faulty products (the 360 alone should've proven that to people by now, and now you can add XBL to the list of potential victims) will not be tolerated.

    BTW...we have five 360 stations. We had to buy 9 in order to get 5 WORKING consoles. Since then, we've had two die. We sent them to MS, they "fixed" it, and once we plugged them up...they weren't fixed at all.

    So tell me that MS doesn't deserve a good hefty class action lawsuit from the consumers that have been duped into spending their hard-earned money on what is quickly becoming an overpriced paperweight.

  • 02sfraser

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 2:42 pm PT

    that seems a bit harsh

  • Peterksayshi

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 1:00 pm PT

    omg wtf is this world coming to
    GOD FORBID that they cant get on xbox live
    like they cant sit on their asses for a few days and do something better
    and they're not the ONLY people on earth that couldn't get on
    YOU SEE ANYONE ELSE SUING MICROSOFT?!?!?!?!
    its not microsoft's fault that 700,000 people wanted to play over the holidays. (I wonder if they ever heard of CO-OP Campaign...wait they've got no friends, because they obviously didn't hang out with them while xbox live was down) (HELL EVEN SINGLE PLAYER, get those missing achievements)
    you'd think they would do something else like hmmmmm maybe read a gosh darn book?
    it wont kill them
    and WTF are they going to do with 5milllion dollars?
    buy more videos games for xbox? and continue burning their brains out?
    oh wait they've got none left from being so addicted to xbox live
    these are the type of loony addicts that need to go to rehab
    and get a freaking life
    THEY should PAY MICROSOFT 5 million just for wasting the company's time with their stupidity, and they owe EVERYONE an APOLOGY for wasting our time

    AND VERY NICELY SAID Valek1394

    "I'm not DEFENDING Microsoft. MS is a big boy now and it can handle things itself. I am however avidly against stupid/frivolous lawsuits of any nature. The American legal system is already too much of a joke as it is, it doesn't need any more help in that arena. For a couple of idiots to cry bloody murder because they didn't get to drop the f-bomb on XBL for a couple of weeks is completely ridiculous alone. Nevermind the 5 million they're trying for. A free game I think is more than adequate to compensate for the outages. Think about it. We pay around 50 a year for this service, most of us use it daily.. thats roughly 14 cents a day. Lets call the outages a solid 3 weeks just for arguments sake, or a 21 full days. Again, for the sake of argument, lets say there was NO functionality at all. So NO one got to use it on even the most basic level. Guess what? You just lost *almost* 3 bucks. A game is more than fair I think to compensate that devastating loss. If that 3 bucks is what makes or breaks you, my suggestion to you is to put the controller down and get a job."

    "If they can afford a $300 gaming system with games, does it not stand to reason that they could also afford a $15 book?" (Tim Buckley http://cad-comic.com/#1540)

  • xHunteRx6x6x6x

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 11:58 am PT

    @Valek1394

    Damn... You couldn't have said it better...

  • mitsman

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 11:29 am PT

    @ clsnbrdr616

    I'm sorry, I don't have a PS3 yet (not until it ships with the DualShock3 included), so I get all my Sony-related info from news sites. I thought Home was still in the beta-testing stage and scheduled for release in Spring 2008. Is it out in the States already? It's not available in Greece yet. Even so, I believe my point is still valid. Just substitute "5 years" with "nearly 5 years". Point is, XBL has been something worth paying for, in the sweet time Sony took to make something equivalent. Let's not get any farther off topic though, or this may turn into another XB vs PS thread

  • clsnbrdr616

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 9:12 am PT

    to mitsman

    Okay, I'm confused on your comment here.

    I believe it is the PShome part of PSN that will allow online gameplay. "Will" being the key word here, which means that PSN does not currently allow multiplayer over the internet"

    Um so how was my playing Call of Duty 4 over the internet with other players on my PS3 not "multiplayer over the internet"? And CoD4 is not the only online game. There are plenty others too (Warhawk for example) I'm not trying to be mean, or anything, just confused at how you can say that.

  • Healboy

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 8:59 am PT

    This is a quote I received from someone on this site about my post... "Question about microsoft lawsuit? Who the hell stop playing games go outside and start "interacting" with Fellow Homo sapians. Have you been outside lately nobody says hi, Nobody is friendly. On your free time you go out and shake random people hand and say good game? Get real and think about it before you write it...."

    It's not my fault you're a social outcast, it's you and your horrible grammar. Also you slap someone in the ass before you say good game. And if you have friends why would you go up to random people in the street. Seriously DMASTOR, you should get real and think before sending an ignorant backlash to someone. It's gamers like you that bring the rest of us down.

  • Valek1394

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 7:42 am PT

    I'm not DEFENDING Microsoft. MS is a big boy now and it can handle things itself. I am however avidly against stupid/frivolous lawsuits of any nature. The American legal system is already too much of a joke as it is, it doesn't need any more help in that arena. For a couple of idiots to cry bloody murder because they didn't get to drop the f-bomb on XBL for a couple of weeks is completely ridiculous alone. Nevermind the 5 million they're trying for. A free game I think is more than adequate to compensate for the outages. Think about it. We pay around 50 a year for this service, most of us use it daily.. thats roughly 14 cents a day. Lets call the outages a solid 3 weeks just for arguments sake, or a 21 full days. Again, for the sake of argument, lets say there was NO functionality at all. So NO one got to use it on even the most basic level. Guess what? You just lost *almost* 3 bucks. A game is more than fair I think to compensate that devastating loss. If that 3 bucks is what makes or breaks you, my suggestion to you is to put the controller down and get a job.

  • jasonlc3221

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 7:34 am PT

    All of you complaining that a free game is nothing, you know that at least 90% of you will still download your free game. Plus, how much money do you really think you wasted on this small amount of time that XBL has been having problems? $5? $8 at the most. So MS is pretty much giving you the equivalent of that in a free game. Quit your complaining, because it's all you're going to get, and it's pretty much all that you deserve.

    To those of you complaining because you think a free game is nothing, you're an idiot! You obviously have no clue how to run a business. In the business world, you don't just start handing out money to people (i.e. - refunding money to XBL users), you give them something for free the company has basically already paid for and will keep the consumers coming back to your business. In this case, MS is giving you a free XBL Arcade game (which MS has already paid for) and in order to get this game, you have to be using XBL (which keeps you coming back to their business). It makes perfect business sense.

  • mitsman

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 7:26 am PT

    @Shivercraft

    *sigh* I feared someone would say that... Yes, I know PSN's specs, and I remember PS2 games had this feature since the console got ethernet connectivity. But as I said in my post, XBL is the only WORKING console-version service of this kind. I believe it is the PShome part of PSN that will allow online gameplay. "Will" being the key word here, which means that PSN does not currently allow multiplayer over the internet. As far as the "online play" feature of PS2 games, I really do not remember much people using it. At least nowhere near the number of people who used XBL from the get-go. I refuse to believe they did not like multiplayer, so I have to assume it was inaccessible in any number of ways. So we get back to XBL being the only one of the three which does all that it's supposed to, and therefore has an excuse to charge gamers. Maybe PSN will rival XBL when it launches its full array of features, and if it works properly for free it might surpass XBL, and force MS to make it free, too. But we are not in that (near as it may be) future yet. We are at the present, when XBL is (and has been for 5 years) the only option for anyone without a PC to play online.

  • Shivercraft

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 7:20 am PT

    to taurian0205,

    Then you need to lurk more. It is a frequent complaint, but, Blizzard gives people a free day of play for the time that is missed as a result of the inconvenience.

  • taurian0205

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 7:14 am PT

    i smell bashers, its a server maintainence idiots, i dont see 9 million wow players complain when wow goes offline for hours and weekly offline schedule, you're all hippies, get a life and stop with the lawsuit already.

  • Shivercraft

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 6:59 am PT

    To Bulldog,

    Whenever your cable is out of service for an extended period of time and not just like 30 minutes, the company tends to offer some form of reimbursement for the most part. Usually a free pay-per-view movie or something along that line.

  • Shivercraft

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 6:53 am PT

    to mitman,

    Playstation Network does offer free online gameplay. Why in the world do you feel that they do not?

  • Shivercraft

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 6:48 am PT

    What did you pay for? An online gaming experience
    What were you denied? An online gaming experience

    Every single person with a Live account should receive a monetary payment for the day/s that they could not use their system for online pay. Downloading a free game is like me paying for a month of service with envelope art.

  • Multi-Killah

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 4:52 am PT

    Only in America

  • powah_serge

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 2:48 am PT

    Ha ha, I actually missed this and the whole idea of some Texan republican suing for not being able to play online. How would this be classified as distress? Humans are flawed, everyone makes mistakes and just for one incident over the holidays this seems pointless and excessive!

  • mitsman

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 2:39 am PT

    I'm sad to see that some people miss the point. I hate to read comments like EU vs US - it's totally unbecoming. There is only the fact that the American legal system allows people to sue for any kind of ridiculous reason. This may have initially been done to allow people to protect themselves adequately, but these days it just ends up being abused to death.

    There is also the view that people who complain about XBL downtime are like "the people under the stairs" or something. We can agree that suing MS for something like that, and demanding $5mil no less, is totally unreal. We can also agree that if XBL does not work, there are a thousand other things to do, like taking a nice walk through your Christmas-decorated city. That's not the point though. When you pay for a service, you expect and want it to work, even if you are flat-rate charged for it. I can understand network problems, as I mentioned in my previous post, but it's just so annoying when you can't take advantage of a good service, especially when you have the free time to really enjoy it. Now, some people mentioned Blizzard. If i am not mistaken, Blizzard has its downtimes too, but makes up for them in a way that nobody complains. If servers are down for a cumulative day, then you get an extra day of free-of-charge gameplay, right? There you go! MS could have done the same thing and never let this be an issue in the first place. No free games, no free MS points, just an extension of your XBL subscription. Fair and square...

    Let me get to the icing of the cake now : the comparison of XBL to PSN and WiiConnect24, and why we pay for XBL, and not for the other two. I hope whoever said that, was simply joking. Sony and Nintendo's online services DO NOT offer online gameplay, and therefore have NOTHING to charge for. XBL is the first and only WORKING online gaming community that has managed to successfully offer console gamers what PC games have had for years. When all you do with PSN and WiiConnect24 is browse the internet download some stuff, and maybe talk to whoever happens to be connected, XBL lets you actually PLAY with other people. That creates an enormous amount of network traffic, which requires a much larger network infrastructure, which in turn requires a bucketload of money to maintain. That being said, MS could easily offer XBL for free with all the money they hoard every year from the IT market, not to mention from the exclusive and multi-platform game titles.

  • Stickdude300

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 1:55 am PT

    I' like to introduce a revolutionary new product,Texas Nut jobs! Its called a life! Heck, even if you wanna play games, and amazing invention called 'Single player' has come to the fore. I mean, come on! Who thinks like this? Still want multi player? ****ing split screen. The sheer insanity of this charge brings shame to all North Americans.

  • Ouji-San

    Posted Jan 7, 2008 11:19 pm PT

    Dam stupids .. sue for anything. Thanks though We get A Free game.. IM not sure what to download though...

    PS when are we getting our free game?

  • Hopelessly_Lost

    Posted Jan 7, 2008 10:36 pm PT

    Also, to add to my post, I'd also like to ask you all to look at yourselves before you claim that everyone in America is an idiot and a crybaby. It's you who needs to tell yourself that your better then them, and then procede to say that on a popular website. If your country had such a court system you would find that it gets as much abuse as the US one. It's the fault of the court system, not the people.

    Also, just as I don't own a 360, I'm also not an American, I'm Australian.

  • timmay222

    Posted Jan 7, 2008 10:00 pm PT

    How thats just retarded...It's sad that people would take the time to actually file a lawsuit for $5 million just cause they weren't able to play online...those people shouldn't be allowed to touch games that involve multiplayer..obviously they're too socially retarded to make friends in the real world that they need to be online to actually have a life...rantage right there woot!

  • shortys1803

    Posted Jan 7, 2008 8:45 pm PT

    Well people will do anything for money i am mad i couldnt play but to actually go that far is ridiculous, i mean how pathetic or redneck (knowing they're from texas) do you have to be to do that it's not a law that they have to be perfect

  • alpriego76

    Posted Jan 7, 2008 7:21 pm PT

    one more reason to move away from the dark side of the force to the Playstation Networ's FREE service. You'll save yourselv a "Red ring of Death" nightmare in the process!!!

  • Fuelee1

    Posted Jan 7, 2008 7:20 pm PT

    Only in America. Pretty much sums up the mentality of most who play on xbox live. morons. Sh*t happens with technology, deal with it.

  • ManOFsTeeL116

    Posted Jan 7, 2008 6:37 pm PT

    I dont really care that the server was down cause i have a life, but i sure want a FREE GAME for a laggy connection anyday.

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