Collins’ Onovia

Apparently some money hungry lawyer has filed suit against Microsoft for “breach of contract” for their service outage over the holiday season. This sounded like yet another frivolous lawsuit to me, so I checked it out.

Now, I know that any service provided online comes with one of those nifty contracts called an EULA (End User License Agreement). I went and had a look at Microsoft’s Xbox EULA. Sure enough, right there in section 16, it states:

16. WE MAKE NO WARRANTY
We provide the Service “as-is,” “with all faults” and “as available.” The Microsoft Parties give no express warranties, guarantees or conditions. You may have additional consumer rights under your local laws that this contract cannot change. To the extent permitted by law, we exclude the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, workmanlike effort and non-infringement.

In that section, there’s an opening. It states “You may have additional consumer rights under your local laws that this contract cannot change.” I did some searching online for consumer rights in Texas, and found little information. I really doubt that there is anything that overrides this service agreement.

Anything that relies on electronic equipment is destined to fail at one point or another. Allegedly, Microsoft should have foreseen into the future that in the time of year that we should be celebrating the holidays with our families and friends, we are glued to the television with our Xboxes, PS3’s, and Wii’s.