If there is one thing nice about lawyers its that they’ll speak the truth if it means it can win them the case, even if that truth has a companies PR team grinding their teeth down to nothing. Recently Microsoft began to ban the use of third party memory cards and other accessories on the 360, the announcement of which prompted a lawsuit from Datel Design & Development who make such things as memory cards and controllers for the 360.
The lawsuit basically says that Microsoft is monopolizing the market for “Multiplayer Online Dedicated Gaming Systems,” and is using that monopoly to get control of the related market for accessories and the like. As such Datel can’t sell related accessories if Microsoft won’t let them and is thus creating their own monopoly. This antitrust suit was filed back in November.
Now Microsoft has answered back with a motion to dismiss the suit and they’re pointing out the success of the Nintendo Wii and Apple Macs to do it. The dismissal points out that Datel’s suit seems to forget that the Wii also has online gameplay and has sold far more than the 360, but Datel doesn’t mention it at all in its suit. How can the 360 have a monopoly on Multiplayer Online Dedicated Gaming Systems when they aren’t even the top selling system with that functionality (they also point out the DS has the same ability and has sold more as well), Microsoft is arguing.
As if touting Nintendo’s amazing sales and online capabilities wasn’t odd enough for Microsoft, it seems that the real savior for the company in this legal battle may be Apple. I’ll explain after the jump.
See, Apple previously stopped Psystar, a producer of non-Apple machines sold with the Mac OS X operating system, from making said machines. They can do this because of “laws that block antitrust claims in situations when purchasers in a “single-brand aftermarket” (in this case the Xbox ecosystem) were made aware in advance that any aftermarket products (in this case the memory units and controllers) would need to come from or be authorized by the same company that offers the primary product (the Xbox 360).”
Microsoft says that this rule applies here as well: “Xbox 360 purchasers knowingly and voluntarily gave Microsoft the right to prohibit the use of unauthorized accessories,” adding that “each Xbox 360 comes packaged with a software license requiring consumers to agree that the Xbox 360 software can be used only with Microsoft authorized accessories.”
The motion is scheduled for a March 2 hearing in San Francisco.
Microsoft cites Apple Macs as a defense in Xbox antitrust case [TechFlash]
