Microsoft has already acknowledged the issues with Live and vowed to recompense subscribers for the outage with a free Xbox Live Arcade game, but Gibson says that the company should have seen these problems coming.

"If they had not anticipated the sales, then they would not have put out that many units of the Xbox to begin with," says Gibson. "They take the money for the subscriptions, but they don't make sure that the service is going to be there."

Though many have suggested that the suit is just an attempt to pick Microsoft's deep pockets, Gibson says he doesn't expect the plaintiffs "to get a windfall or anything like that." What they really want is for Microsoft to "fix the problem. They'd like to be reimbursed for the money they spent when they haven't received the service, and hopefully it will make Microsoft do the right thing in the future."

I agree that Microsoft owes me, and every other Live subscriber, for the amount of time I was paying for Live but unable to access it, but why is this suit continuing forward? Microsoft has already publicly admitted that Live is having problems and promised to make good with subscribers-- a move they made before the suit was filed --so if Gibson is being sincere about his clients' motivations, the suit would seem to serve no further purpose.