Microsoft sued for Xbox LIVE holiday downtime

Mike Bantick
Monday, 07 January 2008 02:34

Your IT - Entertainment

Despite an apology and offer of a free game download, some users of Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE service are not happy about problems encountered recently.  A lawsuit has been filed in Texas.

The online gaming service provided by Microsoft for Xbox game console owners has experienced some growing pains this past holiday season.

It did not cope well with what Xbox Live General Manager Mark Whitten said was a "massive increase" in new users of the service due to increased sales in both hardware and software.

"While the service was not completely offline at any given time, we are disappointed in our performance," he said.

As a result, last Thursday Microsoft announced that details of a free game download for all Xbox LIVE subscribers would be forthcoming.

In pure number terms, this is an offer to the eight million subscribers of a game ranging in price from US$5 to US$20.

Not enough say three Texan gamers who have filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Houston.  The claim? That Microsoft's outages represent a breach of contract and negligent misrepresentation for which the software maker is liable

The three who are filing on behalf of themselves and others that had trouble using the service over its troubled weeks believe Microsoft were negligent in monitoring service usage.  In the claim they state "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."

It is believed specific damages are claimed to be in excess of US$5 million