Datel Sues Microsoft Over Memory Card Lock-Out

While we live in a sue-happy society, there is a point to all of these legal shenanigans. Take for instance Datel, who were on the unexpected receiving end of a Microsoft lock-out when they chose to disable all third-party memory cards. That kills their entire business, and undoubtedly landed a few angry customers in their lap when users found out the hard way that Datel’s products no longer worked… and it was no fault of Datel.

As such, while we fully agree these third-party memory devices to lead to some seedy behavior such as cheating, Microsoft also has full control to wipe the Gamerscore of any gamer they catch. They do it quite often. That’s why supporting Datel when they state, “Microsoft has taken steps to render inoperable the competing Datel memory card for no visible purpose other than to have that market entirely to themselves,” is easy to get behind.

Microsoft has been rough on third party accessory companies this generation, including small companies like X-Arcade, who have to find a ridiculous work-around to make their arcade sticks work on the hardware. Microsoft’s current memory cards are ridiculously overpriced given the amount of storage, and a cheap alternative is a negative only for Microsoft. Legitimate Datel memory card users, we feel for you. The cheaters, well, not so much.