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Comments: 470 +- Games: 360 Disc Scratching Serious Problem on Monday January 02 2006, @08:15AM
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Though Microsoft has previously stated that a reported problem where Xbox 360s may be scratching game discs was relatively rare, it's apparently common enough that rental agency GameFly has an official policy on the problem. From Gamasutra: "We have received reports that certain XBOX 360 consoles have caused damage to GameFly videogames. Unfortunately, we have been notified that you recently returned a damaged XBOX 360 game. As a precaution, we have removed all XBOX 360 games from your GameQ. Please contact Microsoft at 1-800-4MY-XBOX. Please do not rent XBOX 360 games until you have resolved this issue. In the future, should GameFly receive XBOX 360 games from you that have been damaged, you will be charged a replacement fee."
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Increase In Xbox 360 E74 Problems 346 comments
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simple solution.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:simple solution.. (Score:5, Interesting)
But I don't think it's funny, it's just the normal use of a backup copy...
GameFly shouldn't charge its customers but instead ask the game editor for a disk replacement. After all, they're not buying discs but licenses, right ?
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Re:simple solution.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Even an easier solution (Score:3, Informative)
BTW they will just claim that you abused the disk. But I do agree with you but it just isn't going to happen.
Re:simple solution.. (Score:4, Informative)
Go look in the back of the manual.
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Re:simple solution.. (Score:3, Informative)
I double checked San Andreas before posting, and I remember seeing it in Champions of Norrath.
In San Andreas, it's the section labelled "Warranty".
Re:simple solution.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:simple solution.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I completely agree it's not mine to copy, but it will become mine pretty damned quickly if I scratch it. And I bet I would be charged the full game price as a replacement.
Maybe the rental company should have backups. Kind of makes me nervous about renting games now.
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we're screwed with blue-ray. (Score:5, Interesting)
This kind of blows a big hole in the *AA's argument that all this copy protection BS is really about preventing piracy. It seems to me that more and more, it's about getting the customer to buy multiple copies of the same content.
This point is even more obvious when you look at the way the Blue-ray copy protection works [cdfreaks.com]. If you get even the tiniest scratch on the ROM MARK on the disc, the disc is UNUSABLE. Doesn't matter if the rest of the surface of the disc is pristine, your $30 movie is now worthless. (yes, $30, you know they're going to charge 2x or 3x what a normal DVD costs).
That spells it out pretty clearly. The future is downloaded movies. And music. and games. And no, I'm not talking about DRM'ed ones that you pay for.
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His for the duration of rental (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, it IS his copy of the game, for as long as he's rented it. Essentially, he has an unseen license with his copy. If that copy fails, the license is still valid, and he should be able to whip out another copy, and use it instead, without any problems.
However, anyone who buys an X-Box is supporting a company that wants to harm their rights, so it's a non-issue for me either way. Make your bed, lie in it.
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Whoa... (Score:5, Funny)
I've spend $400 on that console and don't want to hear bad news about it.
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've paid retail price (not eBay price) for an Xbox360 with PGR3, Call of Duty 2 and Condemned. I've plugged the console in, put a game in, sat down in my favourite chair - and played three incredibly addictive and FUN games. It hasn't crashed once (because I didn't lag the power supply with fourteen blankets) and it hasn't scratched a disc (because I haven't moved the console from vertical to horizontal whilst a disc is spinning) - yet.
What an idiot I am! I got to play games that I enjoyed. I must be missing the point, but I thought that was the idea of this pasttime that we call gaming. If it isn't, then somebody please show me exactly what the point is, before I "waste" even more of my money on having fun.
"and should Microsoft ever acknowledge that there is anything wrong with the game consoles, you can get a full repair/replacement" - RTFA. Microsoft DID acknowledge the problem.
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Walmart took back my scratched disk... (Score:4, Informative)
More problems? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:More problems? (Score:4, Funny)
You mean some people have bought accessories for a large scale global consumer product, and some of them are faulty?
Say it aint so! This is brand new information!
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Re:More problems? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah. Don't you just love how nobody mentions the massive flaws and return rates for the launches of the Playstation 1, the Dreamcast, and the Playstation 2?
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Re:More problems? (Score:5, Informative)
The next day I managed to play Sonic the Hedgehog for about 20 minutes. Blue Stinger again wouldn't manage past the setup dashboard. In this case, however, there was no scratching. After the first game on Sonic I couldn't get it to load again. It took about a week to obtain a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog that would work reliably. No luck with Blue Stinger so I traded that out for something else entirely. Found out later that one of the three or four manufacturing plants that was pressing Dreamcast games was fucking them all up and about 66% of all Sonic the Hedgehogs was affected as well as nearly all Blue Stingers.
Launches go to shit sometimes. We in the US are often fairly shielded from this because Japan is oftentimes the guinea pig. We got to miss out on the majority of Nintendo and Playstation failures as a result. Playstation 2 had a bunch of problems, from overheating consoles to memory card corruption which led to DVD firmware corruption and the loss of the ability to play DVDs entirely. Those items were fixed by the time the console jumped the pond.
The moral of this story is that shit will always go wrong, the question is how badly. The Dreamcast launch was a total mess given the game fabrication SNAFU. The 360 launch is relatively quiet as a result, other than people trashing all things Microsoft. The quoted failure rate is around 2-3%, which is actually quite low. I don't even expect that high of a success rate when I purchase workstations in bulk (250 per order, expected failure rate around 5%, mostly due to hard drive failure, within the first month).
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Controllers?? (Score:5, Funny)
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They should rename that thingy... (Score:3, Funny)
Seems like a fair, user-friendly policy (Score:5, Interesting)
Most companies would charge for the first discs too - after all, it's the rental company that's most likely to have to swallow the cost (unless Microsoft coughs up... how likely is that to a rental house?).
Kudos to them...
MadCow.
Re:Seems like a fair, user-friendly policy (Score:3, Interesting)
Now if three or four discs came back from they same customer damaged, they might have a case. But one disc?
Why all the bad press? (Score:5, Interesting)
At a minimum, the headline of "360 Disc Scratching Serious Problem" is a little sensationalist, no?
Just because a game rental company comes up with an official policy to deal with an issue, doesn't mean that issue is a "serious problem" - usually it just means that it happened often enough that they wanted to put something down on paper to reduce support calls. (And, frankly, warning users that their consoles might be causing disk damage is a good idea. But that isn't something that's limited to the 360. PS2s have been known to scratch disks as well.)
What about posting a story about the majority of Xbox 360 users that don't have any problems, instead of the (vocal) small percentage who do? Or maybe a story about the fast turnaround time of Xbox 360 tech support? (5-7 days for a brand new / fixed console, for a friend of mine)
I can honestly say that I have not had a single problem since I got my Xbox 360 on release day. (I am waiting on some games to push the hardware to its max, but that's a separate issue.)
Re:Why all the bad press? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Why all the bad press? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why all the bad press? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can honestly say that I have not had a single problem since I got my Xbox 360 on release day. (I am waiting on some games to push the hardware to its max, but that's a separate issue.)
So, until it happens to you, the problem doesn't exist?
I've heard about the scratching problem on X-Box 360s from more places than this article. If a "majority" are okay, it doesn't mean it's not a problem. If any systems are scratching disks then it's a risk. The question is, is it an *acceptable* disk? If just 5% of X-box 360s scratched disks so they became unplayable, then that's bad enough that Microsoft deserves more than just a black eye for it.
Microsoft needs to acknowledge the problem, issue a statement on it, and offer to replace any affected X-box 360s *and games* with a minimum of fuss. The systems should be under warrenty at the moment so that shouldn't be a problem right now, but what about the games affected? And what if the problem only shows up after the system is out of the warrenty period?
Didn't some rumors like this start floating around, something about failing optical drives, when the PS2 was released?
Parent
Re:Why all the bad press? (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't help but make a comment on this. I repair machines in a plastics factory, we make parts for dashboards in various vehicles. For us, defective products are measured in PPM (and I'm sure it's the same across the industry). It's short for Parts Per Million.
We have internal PPM - scratched parts, short shots, bad paint, etc., that are caught by the operators and quality inspectors before they leave the building. More importantly is external PPM - defective parts that we didn't catch, that made it out of the building to the customer site and were rejected and sent back. Naturally, this makes our customers angry and costs us a bundle (since we pay for shipping both ways).
Just today I overheard a meeting between a line boss and his operators. He was ranting over how terrible our PPM scores were: Internal - 23,000 External - 151.
Yes, that's 151 bad parts per million that we produced and sent out of our building. That's less than 0.02% defect rate. If our external PPM ever got over 1% for a particular department (1000 parts per million), it would not be surprising to see some operators and quality inspectors fired. In my plants, a 4-digit PPM is a capitol crime.
Now, to hear that there may be 5% of XBox 360's that scratch discs makes me shudder. That's high enough for a full recall of all products while the issue was sorted out.
I'm guessing that you were just making up a figure, but you picked a rather large one.
Parent
Re:Why all the bad press? (Score:5, Informative)
Consumer electronics has a failure rate between 3-5% (once in customer hands.)
You are comparing two completely different industries. The complexity of a computer system (in this case a video game system) is far higher than plastic injected into a mold. My apologizes for simplifying a plastic dashboard to that extreme.
Once an electronics product ships out the door, 1 transistor out of the millions inside the various chips can cause the entire system to fail. One solder ball out of the thousands can come loose during shipping and cause the entire system to fail. So no, 5% is not too large. It is industry standard for consumer electronics.
Parent
And here we see yet another reason... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fair policy (Score:5, Insightful)
People should learn not to move their hardware through various positions when using it.
IMO, it's fair enough to request that the loaner replaces the damaged disc, if they are properly informed about it before they rent a game.
-JaL
Yet another reason why.. (Score:5, Interesting)
it's getting harder and harder... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:it's getting harder and harder... (Score:5, Insightful)
You go out and get a baseball and a couple of mitts, and take him to the park and have a catch.
Parent
Call be doubtful, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's what, six people?
If anything, this policy is a continuation of a standing policy for all consoles, and they probably deal with far more disk-eating PS2s than disk-eating 360s, simply because of the installed base.
And before I'm accused of being a Microsoft apologist, I am a foaming-at-the-mouth Nintendo fanboy who would only get an Xbox 360 for Final Fantasy XI.
easy fix... (Score:5, Funny)
My sources tell me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Anybody stupid enough to damage their game this way probably deserves to pay for the replacement fee as it is. This information has been relayed to me and confirmed by a regional manager at Gamestop and given the number of stores he manages, I'm quite willing to take his word for it.
Re:My sources tell me... (Score:4, Informative)
AFAIK, tray-loading optical drives (like those in PCs and game consoles) only have a taller conical spindle and something to apply a little pressure to hold the disc in place. I'm not familiar with the internal workings of tray-loading optical drives, so I can't say for sure. However it works, it's obviously not very effective.
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How about a nice RTFM.. (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone managed to wreck their rented disc, all they can blaim is themselves, and pay the repair fee.
Some home insurances might even compensate the destroyed disc, if you claimed it as an accident.
Home owner's insurance? (Score:5, Insightful)
Kids, don't try this at home. Filing a home owner's insurance claim over a $50 game is just plain stupid. Depending on the insurance company's policy, they may count actual dollar amounts, or number of claims. But if you get enough of either or both, you run the risk of getting black-listed. Basically, the insurance company happily pays your claim, then drops you next year. When you go to find new home owner's insurance, every company will ask if you've been dropped in the last five years. Since saying no is fraud, you have to say yes. And they turn you down. No one will give you home owner's insurance. But your mortgage company requires it. So when you can't get it, you're force-placed, meaning the mortgage company goes out and buys a policy for you, then charges you for it. Can you guess how much that will cost compared to your current insurance? File a home owner's insurance claim when your house burns down, or when a drunk driver crashes through the wall and into your living room, or when a hurricane tears the roof off and it rains in your bedroom, not for stupid stuff like this.
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Content or media? (Score:3, Informative)
Sounds like a double standard here.. where the consumer gets screwed no matter what.
It's not just the xbox360... (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess it all boils down to the fact that the old CD advertising line of "Lasts forever!" is simply bad for business.
The possible cause of scratched discs. (Score:5, Informative)
This happened on my PS2 (Score:4, Interesting)
Hopefully Microsoft will be a lot better about handling these repairs.
Initially, Sony wanted to charge me nearly 100 bucks for the privelege of them diagnosing the problem. (even though the machine was underwarantee). A few letters later, combined with multiple calls to the Better Business Bureau - Sony capitulated, repaired my PS2 and replaced my games.
The only downside is that when I got the game discs back in the mail, they all contained rootkits
Re:I wish... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the problem with them, and why so many of us are critical of them. They fuck things up, and we have to keep paying for it with our time, expertise and cash. It's called an abuse of monopoly power.
Re:I wish... (Score:3, Insightful)
I wish I could own a company that, even though tons of idiots deride my success, can continue to succeed and innovate as much (or as little) as Microsoft.
Re:I wish... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it all started when they signed an onerous monopoly licensing agreement with IBM that said their OS would be distributed with all machines, and that everyone had to pay them wether or not they wanted it. Then they made boat loads of money.
They've steadily been putting out incremental, costly upgrades to work out the shoddy workmanship since. This made them further boat loads of money. It eventually took a lawsuit to be able to buy a PC without Microsoft being paid as well -- you remember that, right?
Now, they use all of those boat loads of money to move into markets and basically take them over. There have been tons of examples of better quality products being pushed out of the market by Microsoft overwhelming them. (Either by buying them, stealing their technology, making their OS incompatible, not adhering to standards, or just playing the waiting game of who could afford to lose the most money in a market segment.)
Microsoft has made an industry out of selling shoddy/first version products that eventually get upgraded to reasonable products through a long and costly upgrade cycle, and convincing everyone along the way it was all for the best.
As much as it always sounds like people are just bashing Microsoft because they can, it is perfectly insightful of the poster to point out that Microsoft can continue to keep putting out dodgy stuff and still make oodles of money -- they've always done so.
Microsoft can perpetuate itself because it has such a huge war chest, and a guaranteed revenue stream from upgrades and new customers who don't seem to have options, or don't know better when they do.
You may personally disagree with the sentiment, but having been watching it happen for the last 20 years, that's how it seems to have played out to me.
Parent
Re:I wish... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:vertical placement of unit? (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter what angle the unit is at so long as you're not moving between horizonal and veritcal while the disk is spinning. The potential for damage is when the disc is spinning fast enough for gyroscopic physics to try to torqe the disk at a right angle from the direction the console is moving, pushing the disk into things it really shouldn't come into contact with.
Otherwise, gravity pulling from one direction instead of another in and of itself wouldn't cause damage to the disk. If anything, having the console horizonal would be worse as gravity would be pulling the data surface (rather than the edge) down onto the disk tray.
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Re:Same thing happened with the original Xbox... (Score:3, Insightful)
get one from Japan (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:disc condoms (Score:5, Funny)
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