The Bungie-developed Halo 3 is designed to be hand-in-glove compatible with the Xbox 360, right? A federal lawsuit filed against Microsoft and Bungie last week attempts to throw some serious doubt into the mix. The suit alleges that Halo 3 "routinely, consistently, and systematically 'froze,' 'crashed,' or 'locked up.'" The suit then claims that these issues "disrupted game play," which, if these issues are as terrible or widespread as the suit alleges, is an understatement. The plaintiff, Randy Nunez, is seeking seeking class-action status along with $5 million in damages plus costs and attorneys' fees.

The suit claims that "many consumers" have these issues, making their console "totally inoperable." The court papers cite "industry Internet web sites, weblogs, and message boards" to prove that this issue is a common one. It also alleges that Microsoft and Bungie have "received numerous complaints" from consumers on their phone lines and service forums without admitting these alleged Halo 3 issues to the public.

It's no secret that Microsoft has had trouble with the reliability of the Xbox 360 system. The company has increased the length of its warranty multiple times, and the "red ring of death" has become something of an ongoing industry joke. Robbie Bach, the president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division, has gone on record as saying that "the number of repairs to Xbox 360 consoles have been unacceptable to us." He went on to cite "general hardware failures" for these issues.

Microsoft announced a $1 billion initiative to repair defective systems and to increase the warranty of the units to three years. While newer systems are expected to have better reliability, they have yet to be on the market long enough to tell if the hardware issues have been resolved, and, with many older units still in the hands of gamers, complaints about system death and issues are common.

While the Xbox 360 has a checkered past when it comes to hardware reliability, Microsoft has admitted the issues and paid dearly to fix them; a class-action lawsuit asking for restitution over failed hardware doesn't seem warranted as Microsoft has already put measures in place to replace faulty systems. It's possible that by alleging a specific—and incredibly popular—piece of software also causes the issue the plaintiff can say that Microsoft and Bungie haven't adequately dealt with the problems of the hardware and software combination.

Since Xbox 360 hardware issues are so widespread and Halo 3 sold in such huge numbers, as the suit points out, it's relatively easy to point to many pieces of anecdotal evidence of gamers having hardware issues as they play Halo 3 for hours on end. Having played many, many hours of Halo myself and having had multiple systems die on me since launch, I can say that while I share the frustration of suffering through system failures, I have yet to see or hear about a strong link between the Halo 3 software and hardware issues.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to our requests for comment.