US Supreme court taking up Xbox 360 Disc scratching case

Earlier this month, the AP reported that the US Supreme court will take on the decision as to whether Microsoft will face a class-cation lawsuit over the disc scratching that went on with the Xbox 360. The case came to the Supreme Court as an appeal by Microsoft, who wants a lower courts appeal decision (MS won the original decision, but it was reversed on appeal) thrown out because the company believes that all previous claims by individuals (instead of a larger class-action suit) has been thrown out. There were more than 80 million Xbox 360's sold, but just a small percentage of people reported the disc scratching issues.

I know that I scratched several discs from moving my console with the disc in it, but never to the point that they were unusable. I also never saw the groves cut into the disc from the laser that some folks claim despite having 5 different Xbox 360's over the year, Because of that, I tend to agree here with Microsoft that the disc scratching is more of a consumer issue that a machine issue. Especially in light of the fact that the information was put out there pretty quickly that if you moved you 360 with a disc in it, it will scratch the disc.

This should be an interesting case to watch, but even if it does go to class-action, and the courts rule in the consumers favor, don't expect some major windfall from the ruling.  Most likely the named plaintiffs will get some sort of smallish monetary settlement, but the rest of us that ever registered an Xbox 360 console will likely only get a small Xbox Live credit to be applied toward future games.