Andre Yoskowitz
20 Nov 2009 14:07
AbingtonIP, a law firm that specializes in consumer class action lawsuits, is actively recruiting Xbox 360 gamers that have had their consoles banned from Xbox Live, in anticipation of a lawsuit.
About 1 million gamers were banned in Microsoft's recent wave of banning those using modified consoles and pirated games.
"Although modification of Xbox consoles is arguably against the terms of use for Xbox/Xbox Live, Microsoft 'conveniently' timed the Xbox console ban to coincide with the release of the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 game and less than two months after the release of the very popular Halo 3: ODST game," says the AbingtonIP website (discovered via INCgamer).
"This 'convenient' timing may have resulted in more Xbox Live subscription revenues for Microsoft than it would have generated had these Xbox console bans taken place at some time before the release of Halo 3: ODST and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2."
"Additionally, sales of both Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (published by Activision) and Halo 3: ODST (published by Microsoft Game Studios) would likely have been greatly diminished had the Xbox console ban occurred prior to the release of these games," concludes the text.
The firm is also claiming that the bans affect more then just not being able to play games online, but also bans users from downloading movie and music content as well as stream Netflix, which requires a working Gold subscription. Additionally, AbingtonIP says Microsoft obtained information from the user's consoles without permission.
This case should be interesting, to say the least.