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Datel Sues Microsoft Over Xbox 360 Memory Card Lock Out
Third party accessory maker Datel Design & Development has launched an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft over the platform holder’s decision to lock out unlicensed memory cards on the Xbox 360.
A recent Xbox 360 system update introduced new features like Facebook and Twitter, but it also rendered “unauthorised memory units” incompatible with the console. According to UK-based Datel, Microsoft’s decision is unlawful and prevents customers from exercising their freedom of choice.
“Microsoft has taken steps to render inoperable the competing Datel memory card for no visible purpose other than to have that market entirely to themselves,” said Howard Rice, the senior attorney representing Datel. “They accomplished their recent update by making a system change that will not recognise or allow operation of a memory card with greater capacity than their own. We believe that with the power Microsoft enjoys in the market for Xbox accessories this conduct is unlawful.”
The suit [pdf], which seeks “relief pursuant to the California Unfair Competition Law”, adds: “On information and belief, Microsoft's purpose in disabling Datel's memory cards is to prevent consumers from choosing a Datel product that offers far better value for the price. There is no benefit to consumers from Microsoft's decision to target and disable Datel's memory cards. To the contrary, Microsoft's actions will leave approximately 50,000 consumers with useless memory cards (and without the ability to access their data on the cards), forestall innovation, and deprive future consumers of the benefits of competition.”
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Microsoft were obviously sick of loosing out to third party manufacturers offering generously spec'd, competitively priced solutions that actually work. I hope Datel win but I don't hold out much hope for them. Microsofts law team probably employs more people than Datel's whole company.
This is pretty shameful of MS, the Wii has a standard SD card slot and the PS3 allows you to change the HDD and keep your warranty, so why do MS take this draconian stance on this issue. Are the planning on banning 3rd party controllers or other accessories as well? I hope everyone who has been affected can vote with their feet and buy a Wii or PS3. Good luck to Datel I say.
MS had it coming ...
The sad truth of the matter; Microsoft are too big to be challenged by Datel and its user-base.
I feel sorry for all those users that have bought Datel memory cards, possibly losing save data as a result of this update. I'd be fairly despondent about having to start my games again. It's a shame that both Microsoft and Datel couldn't have reached some agreement before it had a detrimental effect on users.
Why'd do Microsoft have to be so protectionist about their hardware? Datel are no threat to the huge hold they have on the hardware market. Datel are absolutely right to challenge Microsoft! Though as we've seen before, Microsoft won't let this affect them as ultimately they have a belief that their method is best and should be the only solution.
Narrow-minded, Arrogant and Protectionist, This is the behavior that we've become used to seeing from Microsoft and no amount of court cases or financial penalties will stop them!
To be honest i would imagine most people who connect their 360 to the internet would be the same kind of people who also have a HDD, so it shouldn't effect too many people.
But i do agree that it is wrong, what happened to fair competition MS? ( think my question answers itself tbh)
Users have dodged a bullet if they stay offline and it still largely depends if you one of those people who keep games content and saved games separate.
Personally I like to keep my saved games off the hard drive for safety and portability. It also saves Recovering Gamer-tag every-time on foreign Xbox's if you have a memory stick with your profile data. I have also been known to transport XBLA games to friends house for impromptu sessions on Rocket Riot.
512 megabytes isn't going to cut it for much longer and to be fair Microsoft's price per megabyte on all it's storage solutions is extortionate! Datel had the right idea, though I suspect the addition of an SD card interface is what really killed it. It would mean that you could potentially reverse engineer saved and profile data causing further issues for Microsoft.
There are argument on both sides, but why couldn't they have worked together and found a solution that was best for their users. Microsoft have licensed other third parties to make peripherals for 360 in the past, so I don't quite understand the hardline they've taken with Datel.
Fair enough, this was a terribly ill conceived update. I doubt we'll see anything come of this, but I'd be stoked if this gets reversed in a future patch. I'm still unsure if this renders 2.5" drives you've swapped into the 360 hard drive caddy useless as well as the memory stick solutions like Datel offers. The former is a bigger problem in my opinion, but the Datel memory solution is obviously a far better product than Microsofts shite offering.