I should sue the girl who  promised to marry me in kindergarten...

eeww, 360 has Motorola technology in it!?

So you think that a written contract between 2 companies is as binding as a promise in kindergarten? Nice.

When talking about something as nebulous as a "promise", it shouldn't be any more binding than a kindergarten promise.

Did you even bother to read this part:

"Microsoft is asking the courts to determine a more reasonable royalty rate for the use of the technology, along with compensation for Motorola's alleged breach of contract."

Did you even bother to read this part:

A suit has been filed in a Federal Court in Seattle by Microsoft, alleging Motorola "broke its promise" in regards to patent licensing by charging "royalties that are excessive and discriminatory" for the technology included in the Xbox 360.

Yep, a contract and a promise aren't the same, if we add that the "promise" is to apply "reasonable" pricing, we get a wide degree of subjectivity. I can't see MS getting money back, but a compromise between the two parties for the future is very likely. If totally losing and without reaching a compromise, MS could be forced to prematurely kill its console again, although this time maybe it could let it live its whole minimum planned life as main console, but give up letting it live further, after next gen release, as entry level model, as royalties for 3rd parties techs would become excessive to price it low enough for its new role.

Thats probably one good reason why the 360 didn't come with Wifi out of the box. Its good to see this cleared up a little.

verbal conrtracts can be legally binding; what makes you think that they don't have a written contract anyway? Just because some idiot wrote promise instead of agreement?

If we discuss, resting on what we can read is still one step above doing it on hypotheses about what the source really wanted to write, this until we get more reliable infos about the issue, partially or totally confirming or denying it. Anyway, even if it was a verbal and valid contract, the fact that the deal, or promise, or whatever was about charging a "not excessive, discriminatory, punishing, unfair, whatever" fee, still leaves a high degree of uncertainty and subjectivity, enforcing such a clause won't be easy, unless Motorola's request be really and undeniably crazy.