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Microsoft, Wal-Mart sued over infant's death

Lawsuit claims that an Xbox video game system overheated and sparked a killer blaze killing an infant.

The harmful influence of video games on our youth -- inciting them to be trigger-happy, go loitering and utter profanities – is still a raging topic for old-timers to debate.
A similar debate over video games, albeit legal, will be up when a jury may be soon deciding if one faulty Xbox was to blame for the December 2004 death of an Illinois baby.

The family of the infant Wade Kline that died in a house fire has filed a lawsuit claiming that an Xbox video game system manufactured by Microsoft and sold by Wal-Mart Stores overheated and sparked the killer blaze.

According to the suit, the wiring that connected the Xbox 360 to an electrical outlet became so hot that it started a "catastrophic" fire at a house in Warsaw, Ill. The suit was filed by Wade Kline's estate and seeks unspecified damages in excess of $50,000.

It's not the first time that the Xbox has been thought to have caused a dangerous fire. In 2005, a U.K. woman was pulled unconscious from a blaze reportedly sparked by an overheated Xbox system, according to the British online tech news site.

[ Via informationweek ]

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