» 360 Banned In Germany?

[VirusZero]

QUOTE

Xbox 360 sales forbidden across Germany by Rob Crossley Windows 7 OS, Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player also banned; Xboxes may be recalled and destroyed An extraordinary ruling declared today in a Mannheim court has resulted in a ban on selling Xbox 360 consoles throughout Germany. Microsoft will no longer be able to distribute the console to retailers, and may be forced to recall systems sitting on shop shelves and have them destroyed. The ruling will not come into effect until Microsoft’s appeal process has concluded. Also banned is Windows 7 OS discs, as well as the electronic distribution of Internet Explorer and Windows Media player. The shock ruling is due to Motorola Mobility, a phones company which Google is in the process of acquiring, today being granted an injunction against the distribution of key Microsoft products in Germany. Motorola Mobility, which last year posted an annual loss of $145 million, was successful in convincing the court that Microsoft had infringed two patents central to the H.264 video coding and playback. "We are pleased that the Mannheim Court found that Microsoft products infringe Motorola Mobility's intellectual property,” Motorola Mobility said in a statement. The company said it was still keen on resolving the matter, but Microsoft believes that meeting all demands would cost it about $4 billion each year. "This is one step in a long process, and we are confident that Motorola will eventually be held to its promise to make its standard essential patents available on fair and reasonable terms for the benefit of consumers who enjoy video on the web," a Microsoft spokesman told the BBC.

Source

Should Motorola be allowed to enforce such global rights that may end up requiring Microsoft to recall and destroy all 360s in a country? (All because Motorola owns 2 patents on an h.246 video encoder which Microsoft would need to make the 360 or Windows 7 play those video files.) Does this affect people who have already purchased one? (And should it?)

Thoughts? Opinions?

[randomdrifter865]

I find this one just downright weird in general. I can't really say much other than okay. So Motorolla has two patents on two things found in the Xbox 360 okay when did they find this out? Or when did Motorolla even get these patents?

[VirusZero]

Motorola had the patents before the 360 was released (probably before the 360 was in development...) But Microsoft either didn't care or the developers thought Microsoft had already acquired the rights. (Or possibly both.)

As for how Motorola found out? My guess is that they probably reverse-engineered a 360 or were in the process of doing a new system/app or something for it. (Like on some phones you can turn your TV on with your phone, so this way you could use your android based motorola phone to turn on your Xbox/access xbox live, etc...)

In a new twist of the story though it looks like the 360 could also end up banned in the USA too.
source

Though for now the Xbox is still allowed to be sold in Germany due to a US interjection.

So thoughts on this new twist?

[randomdrifter865]

Oh boy this just got worse didn't it? I even did not know for years the Microsoft and Motorolla were even duking it out like this. So going by that article is telling me our president has to now review over this issue now. Should the president be even be worrying about this stupid problem? Why can't the judge system simply just keep in court? Did we really needed to let it get that far when we are focusing on other things that should be more important than this issue.

[VirusZero]

I think the reason the president gets to decide is because it's an absolutely massive deal. We're talking something that's affecting multiple countries (since if the Xbox gets banned in the US that means you're also probably going to see it banned in other countries too. Since if it gets banned in the US that means it can't be imported anymore, which means Canada likely won't get it either since we import it from the US after they receive shipments from China/production facilities.) And that means billions of dollars lost for Microsoft... Plus the fact that it gives a tremendous advantage to the competitors (Sony and Nintendo would love to see this.)

I don't know if this would affect the game market or not... but if it did this would probably be a catastrophic event. (Probably end up with 360 games unable to be sold in countries where the 360 is banned since they rely on hardware with that is forbidden to be sold. So the game would likely end up having parts of the forbidden code on them too in order to use the hardware.)

If Microsoft was ordered to pay fines/royalties/damages/etc on this, all in a lump sum it could very well cripple them. So a lot of careful attention has to be paid to this.

Plus the fact that 2012 is an election year. And even more poignant for Microsoft and Obama are these facts:
1- Microsoft is releasing Halo 4 on November 6th (likely with a midnight release in most places).
2- November 6th is the voting day for the presidential election.
3- Obama counted on a strong young adult (18-24) vote to win the 2008 election.
4- The young adult voters, tend also to be the same group that would care about Halo 4 and the 360.

So if Obama ends up letting the 360 get banned, how do you think that will affect his election status? I mean he'll more or less have pissed off people who might otherwise have voted for him. And the consumer in general might not be thrilled either given that the 360 is a popular holiday gift. So it's kind of a precarious place the President is in.

[randomdrifter865]

Well Virus after reading the reasons I can agree with you quite a bit ,but this is still the dumbest thing I have heard in a long time this to me takes the cake for stupidity at its finest. Election years get stranger and stranger and maybe next election year the president must descide if liking sour pickles over sweet pickles will give whoever it is a lead in votes. Why do I live in this country again? Oh wait I was born here and because I am a citizen of the U.S I vote for a president because he saves Microsofts ass ,but ignores the real problems! To me this is more minor in comparison to the real issues sure this could contribute to the mess ,but in reality the ones who are at fault must pay for their mistakes if you ask me. I don't care if Microsoft makes some of the best software for an OS system they messed up and this shouldn't even be a real problem ,but oh because of how competive we are here this is just another reason why we should be a lot more strict on major buisness industries because it is this kind of mess that kills more brain cells than its worth.

It just seems to me we are heading into another gaming crash it may not seem that way ,but yes it will effect all companies who made games for said system and in turn the company who made the system will in turn suffer as well talk about full circle here. Thats what it looks like to me. Microsoft should have not entered the gaming industry if did something of that scale of an issue and next you know there will be an article stating that Microsoft in its computers systems contained illegal patented parts from apple or whatever. Sorry ,but this kinda just makes me mad how retarded this is. And by the end of day it just shows how ignorant of a country we are if a president in order to stay in power must save a company's ass for everytime it makes a mess it started. As much as I love Microsoft it must pay.

[Demon_skeith]

I hear there trying to get them banned in the states now. Not bolding well for MS.

[randomdrifter865]

No surprise there. Really not much of surprise at all. Well keep me updated bros because often I hear new news bits from forums anyways.