XBL suit muzzles Microsoft

Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb blames Texas lawsuit as reason for company's silence on persisting online issues.

Microsoft ended 2007 on a down note, with widespread problems plaguing its Xbox Live online gaming service through the final week of the year and into January. While some gamers couldn't log in to the service or play games online, they could pass the time by reading frequent Xbox Live status on the blog of the service's programming director, Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb.

Among the updates Hryb gave was word that the problems with Xbox Live were due to the increased server strain associated with a slew of new 360 owners powering up and logging on. That explanation may come back to haunt Microsoft, as three disgruntled subscribers in Texas sued the company, saying it knew of the coming increase in Xbox Live users and failed to account for it. The suit claims Microsoft is guilty of breach of contract and negligent misrepresentation in failing to keep Xbox Live up and running.

Hryb has not offered Xbox Live status updates in recent days, and on his Sunday podcast, he explained why.

"Unfortunately, as some of you may or may not know, a lawyer has decided to sue us," Hryb said. "There is litigation, and once that happens, I can no longer make a comment."

Xbox Live general manager Mark Whitten issued a statement apologizing for the problems, saying he and his colleagues were disappointed with their performance resolving the issues. As a make good, Whitten said Microsoft will offer subscribers a free Xbox Live Arcade game, with the details on that to be revealed in the coming weeks.

222 Comments

  • DarqKiller

    Posted Jan 30, 2008 2:19 pm PT

    What the heck man? because they can't play a video game because the service is having some trouble? "OH IT DERE RESPONSABILITY!1! IT SERVES THEM RIGHT!!!1!" as x-2tha-x says. what the hell? do these people even have a social life? Read a book, go for a walk, play something else, hang out with someone. oh, and its not like it burns you're cash, its at least 5 bucks a month, so stop complaining. last of all, do these idiots think they can win against MICROSOFT?! its four subscribers out of the hundreds of thousands and they think they can win a class action lawsuit against microsoft? yeah, like thats going to happen.

  • x-2tha-z

    Posted Jan 16, 2008 11:07 am PT

    Serves them right. We pay for Live so it should be up and running. If they can't provide us with a stable, working service we should get our money back. The free XBL arcade game will probably be something crap, like New Rally-X.

  • maki0129

    Posted Jan 16, 2008 11:00 am PT

    DirtyAl: To my best knowledge, we're not in a court, but in order for the case to pass into one:

    A) Plaintiffs would have to present solid evidence that there was in fact reasons to suspect such a large increase of users in such a small period of time, instead of a minor one. They would have to prove explicitly that there is no way that Microsoft didn't know that 700,000 new users would log on instantly. And that's gonna be a tough cookie to crack.

    B) Even if they did manage to somehow get past point A. They'd still have to prove that Microsoft didn't do anything to prepare for such an event, and that's gonna be an even tougher cookie to crack because I assure you, if Microsoft did somehow in fact know that so many new users would log on at the same time, they prepared themselves. Reason why I can assure this, Microsoft didn't get to be the most important software (even though I really, really hate MS I have to admit they are) company in the world by being stupid. It's always in the best interest of Microsoft to provide quality service in all their areas, and they know it. So all that the defense would have to do, is present evidence that they did in fact prepare for the sudden surge but still failed to manage it for reasons different from negligence, which they can do because it's either true or because MS lawyers are that damn good.

    C) Plaintiffs would actually have to prove that there was some damage caused by such negligence. And specify actually how those 5 million dollars would be used to somehow improve life for Xbox paying subscribers.

    D) Plaintiffs would have to prove that their lawsuit is somehow in the best interest of Xbox Live paying subscribers.

    In conclusion, this lawsuit won't win anything and just comes to show the amazingly low IQ of three Texans boys and their lawyer.

  • Get_Shorty

    Posted Jan 16, 2008 10:11 am PT

    3 days?? It's been weeks now! and it's still jacked up! And mutiplayer isn't the only thing XBL does "werc96," I couldn't get connect last night to download a movie. Fix it already Microsoft and give us that free XBL Arcade game as soon as possible!

  • werc96

    Posted Jan 16, 2008 8:12 am PT

    Please let the service be.
    Were all human...If you have no life for3 days with no multiplayer than your life must be a sad one.
    Play great offline games... Mass effect, The orange box, Pshhh even halo 3 offline is fun stuff.
    We live in a sad/stupid world.

  • diablobasher

    Posted Jan 16, 2008 2:22 am PT

    Everyone want's a free month. But that's ludicrous. The service was never down, and at best was slow and had issues for like a week. At best you should be getting dollar worth fo free time, but no, they're giving you a free game. Dont want it? Throw more toys out of the pram why dont you.

  • dvdragon

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 1:54 pm PT

    Well if he actually stuck to his decimal values and calculated 1% ( .01) instead of his .01% (.0001) then he would've in fact, come to the correct point he was trying to make in relation to the XBL situation, and show you that 3.65 days is actually not a whole lot of time considering they're up the rest of the year.
    In legal terms that's nice and dandy, but XBL...you freakin knew this would happen...wth.

  • lamprey263

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 1:50 pm PT

    Maybe Microsoft is weighing the option of settling this whole thing by paying out several million for the class action lawsuit of few podunk gamers (acting on behalf of all gamers effected), that would be a lot cheaper than paying for XBLA content for the millions of XBL subscribers that had issues.

  • aaaawwww

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 12:03 pm PT

    "Though most contracts for pay services tout 99.99% uptime guarantee... if that's in their contract, Xbox Live can be off line for .01% of the entire year, totaling 3 and a half days if I'm calculating correctly."

    Actually, it's more like 52.56 mins. If I'M calculating correctly...

  • tearoy

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 11:59 am PT

    I would pull their account and never let them play on xbox consoles every again, I mean I was upset, but man these dudes have took it over board.

  • DirtyAl

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 11:48 am PT

    maki0129 The kind of lawsuit they're filing is a class action lawsuit, one being made in representation of the interests of all their peers, in this case, Xbox Live Paying subscribers. That being said, it's the most ridiculous class action lawsuit I've ever heard of. First: There are around 8 million Xbox Live subscribers in the world, and these people are asking for 5 million dollars, now, it's painfully obvious that you cannot distribute such an amount equally among all Xbox subscribers.

    Second: You can't really prove any negligence from Microsoft, mainly because:

    A) No one can prove that they had previous knowledge of a wave of 700,000 new users. ***Objection your honor!!** this statement is biased towards the plantiff and complete heresay... 700,000 is not too big of a jump that a company of such magnitude would underwrite... B) Even if you were able to prove that they had such knowledge, it0's also impossible to prove that they didn't in fact do everything within their capacity to avoid these problems and were still unable to do so. After all, I know from personal experience that strain tests on servers can be tricky things, and don't always generate the issues that real strain causes on them. ***I move to strike your honor*** I wish to have this stricken from the argument your honor... this is not civil court... also heresay and rhetoric... to say they didn't expect a jump nor did they have a backup plan in case of a strain is unfair practice in a business such as home entertainment... especially when a large percentage of gamers game due to online capibilities... they shouldn't have released the excessive amounts of games with online capabilities if there was a question of server dependability...

  • Cablestein

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 11:33 am PT

    If the network downtime was a frequent occurence over 1 year, or x years, then I could see a suit having some ground.

    But suing them for millions over only 1 week of spotty performance???

    nuts

  • DieHardTWB

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 10:46 am PT

    I haven't looked at the contract, ever, actually...which is odd if you knew me personally. Though most contracts for pay services tout 99.99% uptime guarantee... if that's in their contract, Xbox Live can be off line for .01% of the entire year, totaling 3 and a half days if I'm calculating correctly. We'll see how it plays out.

  • maki0129

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 10:46 am PT

    The kind of lawsuit they're filing is a class action lawsuit, one being made in representation of the interests of all their peers, in this case, Xbox Live Paying subscribers. That being said, it's the most ridiculous class action lawsuit I've ever heard of. First: There are around 8 million Xbox Live subscribers in the world, and these people are asking for 5 million dollars, now, it's painfully obvious that you cannot distribute such an amount equally among all Xbox subscribers.

    Second: You can't really prove any negligence from Microsoft, mainly because:

    A) No one can prove that they had previous knowledge of a wave of 700,000 new users.

    B) Even if you were able to prove that they had such knowledge, it0's also impossible to prove that they didn't in fact do everything within their capacity to avoid these problems and were still unable to do so. After all, I know from personal experience that strain tests on servers can be tricky things, and don't always generate the issues that real strain causes on them.

    Now, for those of you that kept going "MAIKROZOFT HAD A RISPONZZIBILITY TO PROBIDE A ZERVISSS...". I'll say "Please shut up, and stop your brightful display of ignorance...". Microsoft never failed to provide such service in the first place, it was just not working on the same quality as it normally did.

    For those that didn't even experience problems logging on, and there are quite a few, Microsoft doesn't even owe an indemnification. For those that were in fact, unable to log on for that short period of time, which is probably 2 or 3 week, Microsoft owes you the great amount of... 2 dollars. So, if you're given a 5 dollar game as indemnification, you got nothing to complain about.

    In short, for those of you who even think this lawsuit has any basis "GET A LIFE ON THE OUTSIDE WORLD!!".

    Peace.

  • theKSMM

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 9:49 am PT

    Seriously, I can't understand how you can claim "breach of contract." Most providers of online services are quick to indemnify themselves in case of outages.

    This isn't a case where somebody didn't have access to his medication or bank records. It's a gaming service, for pity's sake. At best these guys deserve a refund.

  • christopherneal

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 9:46 am PT

    Wow. Nothing better to do obvisously.

  • tclvis

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 9:37 am PT

    I hope the judge in this frivolous suit orders all three morons into therapy. Or to get those silly 'life coaches,' because if anyone ever needed them, it's these losers. Step away from the Xbox, and no one will get hurt... Maybe Shatner can issue the verdict: Get a life!

  • StarFox-Elite

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 9:36 am PT

    Hey Andy

    You know why the judges don't say no?

    Its because its America, the judge will be sued for refusing to allow the court case through...

  • andrew_ribbons

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 9:33 am PT

    This better not bloody well go through, jesus what is happening these days? Everyone's being sued for something, it's getting ridiculous now. The sad thing is the judges don't seem to have the ABILITY to just say no to these people and send them out of court for wasting everybody's time. This is so STUPID! Those dumbasses in Texas need to be taken down, by somebody, for ruining everyone else's experiance!

  • StarFox-Elite

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 9:05 am PT

    Stupid dumass idiot suers...

    I bet they couldn't find anything better to do and now some dumass from MS is suing his own division's mother company? I think the 4 of them get their asses sued and stuck in prison. Idiots like that don't need rights if they're gonna sue everybody they possibly can...

  • Phazevariance

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 8:56 am PT

    MS should sue the lawyers for sueing them. They can call it Sue-Fest 2008

  • BadMunky

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 8:41 am PT

    "do the american thing; sue them"

  • bogartp_2000 posted Jan 15, 2008 8:37 am PT (does not meet display criteria. login to show)

    bogartp_2000

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 8:37 am PT (hide)

    MS is wrong face it.

  • cadethebigshow

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 8:30 am PT

    Honestly, it is not the end of the world when live goes down. I can still play games, not online but I can still play them. It is frustrating however that the problem has been going on for awhile and just yesterday I was finally able to connect to live. I am looking forward to the free arcade game but I have a fear it may be something I already have, which would suck. Why cant MS let everyone download one 800 point game for free, gamers choice?

  • Dantes_Monkey

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 8:30 am PT

    ffs how's about instead of suing them for money, force them to make the much needed charges?

  • Hvac0120

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 8:26 am PT

    I'm sorry, but a free arcade game doesn't cut it for me. Especially if MS is CHOOSING which game I get to download. I would prefer an extra month of Gold added to my subscription. I suppose I can always just hope that this becomes a class action suit and all Gold members get something decided on by a judge (as long as it's better than what they are already offering).

  • Pedro7_2000

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 8:18 am PT

    The problem is even if MS settle out of court, those jerk holes still win. Litigation in this country is so out of hand. They need to get lucky with a judge who will step up to the plate and throw these guys out of court.

  • ashuncc2

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 8:12 am PT

    Yeah, I listened to the podcast yesterday. I understand MS not responding during an ongoing litigation. I can't stand "ambulance chasers", so I hope the TX attorney loses the case and MS countersues. I assume MS will probably settle out of court.

  • unreal_master

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 8:09 am PT

    ppl will sue for anything

  • Apoc112

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 7:56 am PT

    i hope to jeebus that the suing parties read this because i just want to take this opportunity to say i effing hate you.

    the ONE piece of praise that i could offer MS in this whole situation is that they did a decent job keeping the public informed of what was going on, and why. sure, it was their fault that the service wasn't ready, but your legal actions just took away the one informative avenue we, the consumers, could look to for support.

  • nascar1

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 7:50 am PT

    i don't know what the suer's are asking for, but a simple resolve would be to give 'em their money back and ban 'em from using XBL again!

    for any emotional damage done, give 'em 2 tears in a bucket and if that don't fill it F*** IT!

    yeah it's dissappointing, even frustrating when the online system isn't working and we want what we pay for, but things happen and it's not like this is a constant problem with XBL or no one would be paying for it !

    it's time to add Lawyers to the stink list with Fanboys & EA Sports...they're ruining the gaming industry.

  • holhardy

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 7:41 am PT

    I don't think they will win becasue if you can't win when microsoft knows that the 360 is faulty then there's no way they are going to win with this. But i agree with them that Microsoft knew that there was going to be a spike due to the holiday season and they failed to account for it. Put yourself in their shoes you just spent about $500 to play cod4 or halo3 on you brand new 360 and when you done with the story and want to play with your friends and other it doesnt work right , for 2 weeks. How would you feel about that $500 you spent on something thats not working, on top of that fact it took you a while to find the 360 pro in a store. You would be a little ticked to.

  • sophospeare

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 7:17 am PT

    The stupid part about all of this is that even if this suit goes to court, they're going to have to prove damages. As far as I can see, the only damages we received are roughly 2 weeks of paid Xbox Live Gold service, which runs about $2. MS has already agreed to give us a game and while I would prefer a game of our choice or an extra 2 weeks of Live, I think that's enough. This is just an attorney looking to make this a class action case so he or she, and only he or she will make money.

  • rpgisforme

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 7:13 am PT

    Leave it to Americans to sue over ANYTHING. Don't get me wrong my sister in law is an American and even she agrees with me. C'mon people, try the Canadian way. Grab a beer, put on a hockey game and relax while XBL is down. Sueing isn't gonna help. Leaves less money for them to get working on the problem to get it fixed, and doesn't that sort of make things worse?

  • Bane_v2

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 7:07 am PT

    I'm not a lawyer, but if you read the Xbox Live Terms of Use that everyone who uses the service must agree to it would seem this lawsuit has nothing to stand on. Of particular interest would be section 14 paragraph 2, section 16 and section 17.

    I would assume that the lawyer hired by the Texan subscribers has read the same document I did and decided they still have a case.

    But like I said, I'm not a lawyer so all I can do is hope the judge throws this case out on its ass.

  • jcloverboy

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 6:52 am PT

    Pointless lawsuit. Just makes things worse on those of us who found ways around the downtime.

    I played on Live freely over the holidays. Sure I was disconnected a couple times while playing online games, but I'm not ready to waste people's time and money with a lawsuit over it.

  • Robert-Sapolski

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 6:44 am PT

    1998ACR
    Actually Microsoft owns Rare, hence Viva Pinata. It is possible that Goldeneye could come to the arcade.

  • NorthernRT

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 6:35 am PT

    To me, this lawsuit just means that xbox development will be slowed down for half a year and they won't have as much money for xbox development as they previously had. So basically suing Microsoft is making the xbox worse, good going. Because, I'm not sure that they can just ask the company for more money (everyone knows microsoft has endless amount of money). And everyone knows that they are a charitable company (or at least Bill Gates was). So these guys suing, are:

    A) Making the xbox 360 a worse experience for the rest of us.
    B) Taking away microsoft's money (that is possibly to go towards charity). What selfish fools.

    Although, I don't know if any of this is right, it's just speculation.

    As for the game, I'd be more than happy to take any free game. I think microsoft are allowed downtime, everyone is.

  • Holywarriortim

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 6:33 am PT

    Get a life, go outside. All people want to do these days is get rich quick instead of obtaining wealth through hard work. And you gotta blame these blood sucking lawyers for fanning the fire with some of the advertisements they run, all they are doing is preying on people who don't want to work to earn their money. I really don't want any part of it if they do win. If Microsoft says they are gonna give us a free game, then that is good enough for me. And if they didn't, I wouldn't care otherwise...go outside, see the sunlight for once...or better yet...play single player. And by the way, 1998ACR, Microsoft owns Rare, not Nintendo....but maybe Nintendo does own the rights to Goldeneye....who knows.

  • 1998ACR

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 6:18 am PT

    Thrall-3-20 you must be behind because goldeneye has been officially canned for the time being... Nintendo who owns rare(the company that made goldeneye) cant decide on any terms to allow microsoft to use goldeneye. Some rumors state that nintendo wishes to put the game on the wii arcade... Also to all of you naysayers, these guys that have pushed this lawsuit are asking for a judgement, that if recieved, will share with every XBL user that contacts them. They arent just doing this for themselves.

  • Icekxg

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 6:00 am PT

    The guys sueing probably don't even play on XBL. This is so stupid.

  • Thrall-3-20

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 5:50 am PT

    They talked about that Arcade game weeks ago, I want to know what it is NOW. It better not be some crap game either, perhaps the upcoming GoldenEye 007? I think that would make everyone MORE than happy. I know it would me.

  • Waskallywabbit

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 5:31 am PT

    There's always a cry-baby in every group, only this time, it's one wealthy enough to afford a lawyer to do the whining for them. Lame.

  • rykh

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 5:05 am PT

    Idiots and lawsuits, 2 things this country has too much of. Almost all mmo's would be initially sued because of connection if this was the case.

  • bigbadbobbyb

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 4:49 am PT

    Sometimes technology doesn't always work the way you want it to. Get over it. That's nothing to sue over, it only causes more problems like we are seeing now... rather than being able to focus their attention on important things like making sure XBL doesn't have issues again (if you can call them issues... honestly, I didn't even notice until it was on gamespot), they are no longer able to give service updates and have to focus on these idiots who are just trying to make some easy money. They shouldn't be entitled to anymore than like $1 (an approximation of the $50 per year they paid for XBL being unreliable for one week). You people defending them are fools.

  • thomfilm

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 4:28 am PT

    Its not about being "sue-happy". If you're paying for a service it is the companies responsibility to live up to and fulfil their contract with you. What if you hired a carer for a sick relative and one day they didn't show up becuase they had too many clients? or if you pay for a taxi somewhere and you get dropped off half way because the driver has someone else to pick up.

    It is a small amount of money and a short amount of time, but that is subjective and the law cannot afford to be like that.

  • Blank2k2

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 4:11 am PT

    Americans, so sue-happy its unbelievable!

    So what if the live server was having problems, nothing runs without a hitch, these people just saw micro$oft & thought this is an easy way to make a few 100k compensation, probably don't even own an xbox360.

  • kylepadd

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 4:04 am PT

    Totally agree w/ tzimisce24. Why is everyone so lawsuit happy? Can I sue someone for reading their crappy posts on GS. Hmmm get rich quick scheme eh?

  • epormada

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 2:28 am PT

    This sucks for all those new users who tried to see what XBL was like and thought that it sucked because it wasn't working properly. That will probably hurt MS more than anything, although it's only a temporary set back.

  • Spartanx23

    Posted Jan 15, 2008 2:10 am PT

    I like this guy!

    tzimisce24 To those whining and griping about this: get a grip. I've seen a few people posting about how they should get "flawless" service because they pay for it. So I take it you expect that a computer or a car you paid for will never, EVER have an issue? Or if you buy a shirt, it should never, ever fade or rip? And let me guess, those of you who are actually older than 12 and have jobs, you've never screwed up at work in a way that impacted a customer? You're all perfect, is that it? I see.

    Microsoft admitted a screwup on their end, and they fixed it. Yes, it took them a while, but XBL is a pretty complex infrastructure, I'd imagine, so I'm not surprised it took them a while to find and correct the problem. They're making good with a free XBL game, and they don't even really need to do that. I'm sure they'll be absolutely devastated by all you folks saying you won't use XBL anymore... until the next big game comes out, you gutless blowhards. As for you momos crying that you should get a month of free service... no. The service was down for 1-2 weeks. Ergo, you should get a discount on your next month's bill for the service, reducing it by the amount equal to 1-2 weeks. That's it. That's all.

    If you go through life whining and screaming every time something breaks or a company's service doesn't meet your expectations of flawlessness, you're going to be even more sad and miserable than you already are. Humans are fallible, things designed by humans are the same way. Deal with it, or design a better service and compete with XBL. Put up or shut up.

    As for the three smacktards who are suing Microsoft, I hope their case is tossed out. And if I were Microsoft, I'd smile, reimburse them the amount of money appropriate to the time the service was unavailable... and then countersue them for filing a nuisance lawsuit.

    And now, I'm off to play some Halo 3. On XBL.

advertisement

Hot Stories

Newsmakers

Featured Stories

Submit News

Got tips? Send them in!

Recent News

See All News »

Site Blogs