360 Disc Scratching Serious Problem

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."

Walmart took back my scratched disk...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just an FYI. I don't know if they will still do that, but their 'accept all return' policy is handy for this...

Re:simple solution..

[KDR_11k]

Unless the x360 changed that, console games are NOT licensed, they are bought. There is no EULA in console games and the only contract applying to them is the sales contract.

Re:simple solution..

[sqlrob]

No EULA? No click-through is more accurate.

Go look in the back of the manual.

Re:vertical placement of unit?

[KDR_11k]

The unit is mounted vertically in Microsoft's demo kiosks, if that makes it damage discs that'd be false advertising.

Re:simple solution..

[KDR_11k]

Lexmark sold ink cartridges for a reduced price if the user agreed to returning the empty cartridge to Lexmark afterwards. This was a special offer known at the time of purchase. I.e. that'd be a contract between you and Lexmark established when you buy the product. You can choose not to agree to that and pay the regular price instead.

Content or media?

[nurb432]

So what are we buying/renting here? The content or the media?

Sounds like a double standard here.. where the consumer gets screwed no matter what.

Re:simple solution..

[JLennox]

Block Buster did attempt to start using flash carts for the Genesis console prior to its death. The idea never set foot, and I'm not sure if this is due to legal reasons, but they did, of course, intend to own proper lisencing for all of these games.

Re:simple solution..

[sqlrob]

What game did you look at?

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".

Even an easier solution

[LWATCDR]

Don't by them to start with.
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:More problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

I picked up my Dreamcast the night of launch at around 12:15 AM. I got it home by 12:30 AM. Opened it up and got it hooked up by 12:40 AM. Put in Sonic the Hedgehog and couldn't get passed the setup dashboard. Put in Blue Stinger and had the same effect. System made grinding noises and shook when attempting to read either game. Took out the disk and noticed shearing marks across the surface. Packaged the system back up by 1:00 AM. Got back to the store at 1:15 AM. They were still open with a fairly sizable line out of the door. Walked in and returned it right then and there with a bunch of onlookers who were completely aghast. Got the replacement back home but decided that I really needed to get up for work at 6:00 AM so I went to bed.

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).

Re:Why all the bad press?

[CMiYC]

I'm guessing that you were just making up a figure, but you picked a rather large one.

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.

Re:My sources tell me...

[LightForce3]

CD Walkmans are much less likely to scratch CDs because the CD is held in place parallel to the disc tray. When you push the CD onto the spindle, the little nubs at the top of the spindle hold it in place. Laptop optical drives work the same way.

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. ;)

Re:disc condoms

[gabrieltss]

I have tried them before - don't bother! I bought some to protect my son's DVD's so they wouldn't get scratched. Guess what The DVD player wouldn't even read the DVD. I pulled the thing off and it read just fine. Also they are a pain in the arse to put on and get the stupid air bubbles out from between the cover and the DVD/CD.

Re:Call be doubtful, but...

[Generic Guy]

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.

Yeah, but the fact that they'll clear your 360 request queue and the fact that the machine has only been out 2 months makes this a big deal. Already there are folks reporting various levels of both abuse and non-abuse noticing the circular gouges on their game discs. Microsoft is of course tight-lipped about the actual level of problem, but has directed retailers to replace scratched discs.

There's enough prattle and din about this issue that something is certainly wrong with the design of this machine.

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Re:vertical placement of unit?

[GizmoToy]

Did this actually happen? I have a launch PS2 that I've had vertical since I bought it (fits nicely between all my components). No problems with scratching discs. I've never heard about it before. I'd say I'd flop it over so its horizontal, but at this point it probably makes no difference.