Samuel Lassoff is sick of buying up Xbox Live points and, as an attorney, he decided to do something about it. He’s suing Microsoft, claiming that the Xbox Live point system “unjustly enriches” the company by forcing users to buy point bundles that can’t be used in their entirety.

It seems weird that it’s the unjustly enriching that we’re worried about, not the exploitation of the consumer. There are plenty of companies out there getting unjustly rich off all sorts of scams. Target’s recent video game setup service is a great example. Whatever the reason, though, I’m glad to see someone get indignant enough to try their hand at stopping the giant in its tracks.

Microsoft said recently that it never meant for the points system to confuse people, but that just can’t be true. What other reason is there for inventing a currency system that isn’t 1-1. Branding? No. Anything else? No, not really. Luckily, it’s about to change, and with impending litigation it may change sooner than expected.

Source: Information Week

It’s easy to think of Guitar Hero as a mint, a source of nearly endless money for everyone involved that’s just now starting to dry up. That’s not exactly the case.

Darren Richardson, the president and CEO of peripheral manufacturer Mad Catz, told Kotaku today that his company paid $300,000 so it could back out of the original contract due to an ongoing lawsuit with Konami.

“Guitar Hero was a game that we were actually involved with early on and pulled out because of a lawsuit with Konami,” Richardson said. “We were doing the Xbox SKU and that’s why there was only a Playstation 2 launch. That’s why. We were in there and we pulled out as a result of (the lawsuit) and (Red Octane and Harmonix) went forward and it turned out to be a success, a huge success.”

Somehow Richardson has a sense of humor about the whole thing. “Everyone else made hundreds of millions and we paid money to not be a part of it,” he said. “It was brilliant. I come up with these strokes of genius from time to time. That was my best.”

If only sarcasm could turn back time.

Source: Kotaku