Why are ps3 and xbox 360 exempt from the sale of goods act ?

Surfer · 10 Mar 2009 at 12:06

edGfaCTor said:
But it's not that's how it works I have spoken with trading standards many times and they say the same thing you have to prove there was a fault when you purchased it.

first 6 months they have to prove theres a fault

6 months - 5 or 6 years after then burden of proof is on the customer

Nitefly · 10 Mar 2009 at 13:53

Surfer said:
first 6 months they have to prove theres a fault

6 months - 5 or 6 years after then burden of proof is on the customer

I'm suprised it took someone this long post this.

Good luck with arguing to a court that 'it wasn't built for suitable purpose' at the time of sale.

Davey_Pitch · 10 Mar 2009 at 14:08

Nitefly said:
I'm suprised it took someone this long post this.

Good luck with arguing to a court that 'it wasn't built for suitable purpose' at the time of sale.

Therein lies the problem. While it's blindingly obvious to any gamer that the Xbox 360 has a design flaw that causes many of them to fail, virtually every store knows that even if you go in quoting the SOGA at them, you're not going to take them to court over it to try and prove the design flaw, as there is a chance of you losing and therefore having to pay all legal costs, which will come to much more than it would cost you to pay the repair bill or buy a new console.

I'd be interested to see what would happen should someone successfully take a retailer to court though, it would certainly see thousands of people taking their broken consoles back in.

Energize · 10 Mar 2009 at 15:14

Nitefly said:
Good luck with arguing to a court that 'it wasn't built for suitable purpose' at the time of sale.

That would actually be very easy, simply cite microsofts failure rates and they will immediately order a repair, hell the judges own xbox 360 probably broke. And this a civil court remember, the judge has a lot of discretion, if he believes it was inherently faulty he will issue a replacement.

Nitefly · 10 Mar 2009 at 15:34

Energize said:
That would actually be very easy, simply cite microsofts failure rates and they will immediately order a repair, hell the judges own xbox 360 probably broke. And this a civil court remember, the judge has a lot of discretion, if he believes it was inherently faulty he will issue a replacement.

Of course this would have to be outside of the 3 year warranty period which microsoft has given...

No chance IMO.

Energize · 10 Mar 2009 at 15:42

Nitefly said:
Of course this would have to be outside of the 3 year warranty period which microsoft has given...

And for a games console you would expect it to last the full 6 years, I'm pretty sure a judge would not be sympatheic to microsoft after the fiasco the 360 was and their reluctance to issue repairs, note that the 3 yrs is only for the 3 red lights, not the other common overheating problem.

Nitefly · 10 Mar 2009 at 15:52

Energize said:
And for a games console you would expect it to last the full 6 years, I'm pretty sure a judge would not be sympatheic to microsoft after the fiasco the 360 was and their reluctance to issue repairs, note that the 3 yrs is only for the 3 red lights, not the other common overheating problem.

But you have to prove that it was faulty at purchase. Ie, conduct a series of experiments showing that the componants were always faulty and it hasn't been to poor ventilation, mishandling etc. That would be extremely difficult.

But by all means, anyone can try to face the wrath of Microsoft's lawyers

Energize · 10 Mar 2009 at 15:57

Nitefly said:
But you have to prove that it was faulty at purchase. Ie, conduct a series of experiments showing that the componants were always faulty and it hasn't been to poor ventilation, mishandling etc. That would be extremely difficult.

I think in this case a judge could legally accept the high failure rates as proof enough without a scientific demonstration, it would defeat the point of consumer rights if they didn't. Judges aren't total idiots after all (well some of them are). It is in fact easily proveable that the overheating issue is caused by bad heatsink design, just by using the console for a while the seperation between the metal washers becomes clearly evident.