KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
For as long as there have been ROM drives, there have been reports of discs being eaten. It's not a new topic, as anyone who spent a day trying to get the remains of a cassette tape our of an old-world music centre will testify. Does the problem still exist with the XBox 360? Let's say that a Microsoft XBox 360 eats your game disk, then who's responsible? KitGuru looks over the evidence.
.
One of KitGuru's most loyal readers purchased the latest XBox 360 Kinect edition over the Xmas holidays. For the best part of 2 days, it sat in the corner, silently delivering world class entertainment. Having heard all of the Red Ring of Death stories from the early days, our reader was happy to note that the unit was cool to the touch and seemed to be much nicer than the early models.
Unfortunately, that's where the good news ends.
Toward the end of the second day, a low rumbling began to eminate from the unit. Within an hour, while playing the Kinect Adventures game that was supplied with the package – the rumbling turned to a clattering.
Ejecting the game disc revealed that the surface had been well and truly chewed by the Microsoft Xbox 360.
.
If you're not sure from that shot, we have blown it up and inserted an astronomic beauty to help highlight the new addition to the brand new game disc.
.
When it works, there's no doubt that the XBox is a really cool piece of technology. The Kinect device is nothing short of miraculous, given the price that these things sell at. However, buying a complete game experience for £249 doesn't sound so cheap if random units are capable of chewing up £50 disks.
KitGuru asked its old friend Google about “XBox Kills Disks” and was informed that there were more than 1 million entries concerning this issue. Sure, not all of them will be genuine, new or even true – but how many issues does one manufacturer have to see its customers endure before it chooses to fix the problem? Cheap DVD drives might be around £8 on the mass market scale that Microsoft would buy them, but high quality drives can't be more than £10. It's a small price that a lot of customers would like to have the chance to pay, if it would reduce the risk of XDisc.
From what we can tell, neither the Nintendo Wii, Sony Playstation 3 or humble home PC suffer from this tendency to mass murder games – so why does the XBox have such a fearsome, pervasive and long standing reputation as a killer?
Every Guru's friend, Wikipedia, has a great section devoted solely to the problems suffered by XBox 360 owners, which you can find here.
Dutch TV program ‘Kassa' reported some time ago that 1 in 9 of the XBox consoles it tested, would spontaneously scratch a disk – even if the entire system was in a suitable/shielded environment.
While Microsoft enables the world to communicate with PCs, it seems to have been strangely non-committal about the problem of “Whose responsibility is it to replace disks which have been scratched by an XBox 360 – when the manufacturer has ample evidence that the problem is not an isolated one”. KitGuru wonders what (if any) kind of pressure Microsoft has brought to bare on the European Commission for Gates & Co to be able to avoid responding to direct questions about scratched disks. From the reports we've seen on the web, it seems that Microsoft was due to give a formal statement to the European Commission 4 years ago, but never did.
.
Looking at the very latest reports, it seems that Microsoft's XBox 360 console is keen that disks not leave the vicinity of its DVD-chopping capability.
The basic technology within an XBox 360 is good. With the advent of process improvements, the core spec gets better and better, while consuming less power and creating less heat. What KitGuru can't understand is why has Microsoft allowed these poxy manufacturing issues (component choices? physical assembly?) to give it such a tarnished reputation for quality.
A while back, Gamespot reported that you are almost 2.5 times more likely to get a failure with an XBox 360 than a Playstation 3 – and almost 10 times more likely to have a failure with an XBox 360 than with a Nintendo Wii.
KitGuru's Quite Sure XBox 360 Disk Scratching Will Get Worse
We will need to wait a couple of months to see, but there's every chance that this will get worse. While independent reports have stated that Microsoft is able to engage XDisc without any outside influence, given the established disk scratching history we've been reading about, all you would need to do in order to massively increase the number of issues, is to vibrate the XBox 360 during use. This is where Microsoft will be relying on its boffins to create a device that requires console-shaking as part of its natural operation. Finally, we back that up with instructions from Microsoft itself for you to jump up and down like a lunatic next to your (potentially flaky) console.
Cue KINECT.
If Microsoft Kinect's smart new technology doesn't generate the mother of all spikes in XDisc 360 scratching, we don't know what will.
UPDATE: We have received many more reports from KitGuru readers about this topic. As a result, we have asked Jonathan Hargreaves for an official reply from Microsoft to the whole “XBox Kills Disks” question as well as “Does Kinect Increase Disk Scratching” and “Who is responsible for replacements”. We've asked for a reply by 6th January next year – and will report back to you on what we hear. This story has taken a ton of traffic already and searching for “XBox Kills Disks” on Google gives you over 1 million responses – with KitGuru at position 1 at the time of writing.
.
KitGuru says: We are genuinely hoping that the new reports we're hearing about Microsoft XBox 360 disk scratching is only a random occurance, but we don't think so. Over the past 20 years, the world has moved toward hard flooring – perfect for transmitting vibration. Watch any group of kids playing Microsoft Game Studio's Kinect Adventures and you will witness loads of jumping/thumping/bumping. But Microsoft insists that Kinect is for everyone. Cue the adults. Basic physics says Force = Mass x Acceleration. That means the more you weigh and the higher you jump – the harder the vibration through the floor to your nearby XBox 360. For whatever reason, the XBox 360 seems much more prone to vibration-induced technical issues that its counterparts. Please don't throw your receipts away.
If you have ever suffered from XDisc, let us know. Also, we're keen to hear from you if you have any legal opinion about damage to 3rd party disks (i.e. NOT from Microsoft Game Studio) which are scratched during normal operation of an XBox 360 during the first year of use. Given the reports available on the web which have covered this subject for many, many years, should that damage be Microsoft's responsibility – or is it a case of ‘buyer beware'. Let us know your thoughts.
Last I heard Microsoft had paid out over 2 billion dollars on RMA costs, including staffing, etc. lets hope they make something next time which actually works right on a hardware level. this is the biggest POS ever. Shame, as when it works its great.
Now I know this is on the increase since kinetic came out but I don’t have it yet but have suffered the same issue with this lovely disk marking with my Xbox 360 and the story that surrounding it being a big pain. I got DJ hero 2 when it was released the first day went without a hitch and the second day the same untill I went onto live the machine made a horrible sound and froze the game when I released the disk I found a perfect round mark on it. I then phoned Microsoft Xbox support who told me they could not do anything as it was not a Microsoft title (talk about passing the book.) I then phoned activision who made the game who again told me that it was the machines fault but could replace my disk for £12 as it was berly 48 hours old I wasn’t happy and told him no. Both companys told me that they never herd such a thing I was confused on what to do I had insurance on my console through game so I decided to go though with a claim thinking that the machine had a fatal error with it. So sent it of the next day. As I still wasn’t happy the fact I payed £90 for this game as I got the decks too it was still useless because of this big dirty circle mark on it. I then started searching the internet for similar cases and found out I wasn’t the victim of a rouge Xbox and that I had infact a common disk laser burn Which sometimes occur when the drive losses the disk slightly or a bit of dust on the laser. I put this to Xbox and activision and still no justification for a free new disk which I felt I deserved and basically still told to sling my hook (professional of corse) I then told my friend of the fun and frolics I was having he then told me what I researchd on about disk/laser burn but informed me that I could go and get it repaired as long as the mark on the disk was not a scratch I then took the game to my nererst game shop who cleans skimd and buffed the disk twice and the mark had gone and the game works perfect again. Now sorry to bore you with that story but why did I not get that answer when I rang Microsoft or activision plus I sent the console off for repair and it didn’t need it so I even went without it for three weeks. I feel cheated in some ways it could all being avoided if the right information was passed. Oh yes nearly forgot to mention when I passed the information to Microsoft and activision that it was laser burn they told me that it might be a result of vibration through my floor bords and that my Xbox was standing in the virtical position I told them it wasn’t as one its laying down in a open cabinet and two its in the conservortory which has a concrete floor! But too them it was still my fault. Sorry everyone for that long winded story but I felt had tone shared so people know some tips on what to do as thease big companies are not prepared to help the little guys.
Well put Simon, I’ve had a similar experience with an Xbox and both companies washed their hands of the problem. Times like this, thank god for decent shops. But what happens to the shop keepers? Can they return the damaged products? I hate to think that a store steps up to help and then gets shafted
I’ve had two disks scratched. One was from vertical tipping, the other was from possible semi-vertical lifting. The second occurrence happened today.
Don’t use Kinect so not my problem.. unless i start jumping up and down in a fit of intense rage…
Well they at least fix problems, and they migh fix this one but 2012 is next year practically soo they might not.
We bought the kinect for Christmas and 4 days later the kinect adventure disk was scratched. This suprises me from a company as accomplished as Microsoft. At 50 dollars a pop for games, I wonder how much money I have just thrown away…
My kinect was great, I bought it for Christmas. My xbox 360 is on the floor and the discs scratched and I didnt know. two of them no longer play. This is a disaster.
Having been a long time Xbox 360, and on my 5th console, I realised that this could be a recipe for disaster, a bunch of people jumping up and down while the discs were spinning. Its even worse if you use the 360 in a vertical position. Someone needs to get a response and some support from MS, cause they really dont give a toss.
Bought the xbox360 with kinect for my son for xmas. Saved all year to afford it. Set up console as per instruction book, kinect adventures refused to play on first try, large circular scratch found. Game refused to replace it. Wish I had saved all that money and bought the wii instead.
SAME SAME…SHAME…….New XBox/Kinect bundle…….I was playing “Lengendary” – the game froze……I waited 10-15 secs……DID NOT TOUCH THE CONSOL….I opened the DVD drawer and heard the scratching noise…….game will not load anymore……No support from Microsoft……”its not a game made nor distributed by M”……
I am not a happy camper
Took my XBox 360 S 4GB Kinect box back to Argos today and the woman said it was the second one she had refunded today
OK, I think what we’re seeing here is that it IS possible for people to buy an XBox 360 which scratches disks during normal use.
Our question is, than, 100% valid.
If your expensive game disk is killed by your XBox 360 during normal use, who is responsible for replacing the media?
We have now made official inquiries to Microsoft, Harmonix and John Lewis.
Replies will, naturally, be reported back to you all here.
Much the same as above , has turned out to be something of a white elephant, ruined fifa 11 on 1st day , disc was swapped but shop assistant thought the vertical position was not the best to avoid the problem, so we put it horizontally on a big soft seat, it then ruined the £35 game he had just bought with his own money, game station tried to polish it as other retailer said it could not be replaced . after polishing, it still did not work. We have had wii and ps2 for a few years and never had a problem, wish Santa had never bothered.
@faith – I run an online disc repair service and the feedback I am getting from customers is consistent with what you said. Whilst the majority of them say that they accidently knocked over the console, some have said it was laid down flat on a stand and still heavily scratched the discs.In some cases, it seems that strong vibrations are enough to cause the Xbox 360 to scratch discs. For example if someone walks past a TV unit and the stand slightly wobbles. If this is the case then Kinect really is going to cause serious problems for their users!
The good news is these damaged discs can actually be repaired. Whilst the radial scratches can be very deep, they very rarely reach the data layer of the disc – they only cover the polycarbonate layer, which is there to protect the data. I am sure you can see the irony of a protective layer actually stopping the laser from reaching the data, but once you remove it, the game will be in full working order again.
We have a couple of ELM Digitalia disc repair machines which can get these discs looking like almost new discs in just a few minutes. Some of the high street stores use much milder machines which are great at removing less severe types of damage, but they can’t cope with the depth of the ring scratches. This is probably why many people assume they need to go and buy a replacement disc.
If anyone has any questions regarding the repair of a Xbox 360 game, or any other type of disc please, please ask – The last thing you want to do is buy a replacement disc when it could be repaired for a fraction of the cost!
I got my x-box 360 about 9 months ago and for no reason whatsoever it is scratching my discs. I havn’t moved it or anything to cause this but now my halo reach disc is scratched and i am not happy seeing as i just got it for christmas. i have darksiders game disc ruined as well. so now im stuck do i continue to play games and destroy them or is microsoft going to take responsibility for their product and fix it. Also had an elite for 1 month and had red rings of death they replaced it and it worked fine for about 2 years then got the no video failure. Now have this one and its messed up. I WILL NEVER BUY ANOTHER X-BOX 360 AS LONG AS I LIVE. but i do want what i payed for already to work. then after that its ps3
I purchased the 360 a few months after launch and have experienced two RRODs and zero scratched disks. I purchased the Kinect for my family and have since logged about 60 hours of gaming using it with no ill effects (outside of sore muscles of course). My gaming room as carpeted wood floors and a wooden home theater cabinet.
I have never had a scratched disc or anybody else I know, a lot of us also have Kinect and it’s fine, seems like these problems magiically happen on the net but not in the “real world”
What was I reading the other day ? oh yes “I plugged in Kinect and my “OUT OF WARRANTY” console red lighted., “I wonder if MS will fix it for free”
http://community.eu.playstation.com/t5/Gran-Turismo/LOOK-WOT-MA-PS3-DID-TO-MA-FAVOURITE-GAME/td-p/10264324
I have experienced exactly the problem shown in the photos, from exactly the suspected behavior. We played Kinect Adventures, with the XBox 360 S mounted horizontally on a TV stand, so nothing out of the ordinary here. Except the radial scratch.
We’ll be taking it back to the store for replacement. Let’s see how many times Microsoft wants to deal with replacement discs, as this is pretty clearly a problem they’ll be having on 100% of the consoles and 100% of the Kinect games. In retrospect, it would have seemed easier and cheaper to have put in $0.25 bumpers.
We had the same problem with the Kinect Adventures game getting scratched. We played if for about 15 minutes the first night we bought the Kinect, so I know it was working at one point. Then the next day I played it again and heard a horrible scratching/rattle sound from the Xbox. The disc was scratched around the outside and wouldn’t play. Fortunately BestBuy let me return the whole unit and get a new one. I’m going to download all of my Kinect games to my harddrive in the future in the hopes that it will help.
I am impressed to see a report on the nature of the Xbox disc scratching events. I got an Xbox for Christmas on the 25th of December 2010, a Christmas present from my parents. I got the Kinect package and not only did I get 4 games I went out and bought extra controls, other games etc, total cost probably around 400 pound by the time I had finished. The X box was great, it was the Xbox 360, 4gb slim and I too was playing on Kinect adventures on the 4/1/11 I played for 45 minutes and then there was a notice on the screen when I clicked to go on another level, “disc unreadable, please clean” I took the disc out and to my horror there was a perfect circle, a very deep scratch/scorched, I tried to clean it using proper disc cleaning device, but I had no joy. I then put Foza 4 driving game in and again disc unreadable, the Xbox has destroyed two of my games and having only played on the Xbox 4 times since Christmas I am very disappointed, this is Microsoft, computer experts, well at least I thought. I have taken my Xbox back to Argos and asked for a replacement, they had NONE in stock all over the midlands in Argos, I find this very strange as the customer service rep explained he had the same problem with his Xbox and others have taken them back. I have excepted a refund but the package deal I got was very good value and I know I won’t be getting an Xbox for this price with Kinect and 3 games for this price anywhere especially with the rise in VAT. Microsoft need to accept responsibility, recall the Xbox and offer a solution to very disappointed customers, especially those that have had a Christmas present now revoked.
Same problem with xBox 360 4GB console + Kinect bundle that damaged the Kinect Adventure DVD. EB Games just told us it’s our fault for moving the console while it was playing. We told them that the console is on the stable floor and nothing done other than normal loading and playing. No luck 🙁
I purchased the 360 4 GB Kinect bundle and adventures shut down after 2 weeks (only 3 days of play).
Returned the whole unit with adventures game for replacement from Newegg. They gave me no hassle and were fast. IF Microsoft had just responded maybe I could have found a resolution short of returning a whole system…BUT they have not given an explanation.
Same thing just happened with my 4 day old, never moved xbox 360 and kinect.
I’m rather annoyed.
What to do if your Xbox destroys a DVD, resulting in a narrow circular scraped band around the outside perimeter of the DVD:
It is possible to fix the DVD by running it through an industrial buffing machine. Don’t have one? Most game trade-in stores, such as “Play n’ Trade” (Layton, UT) have a buffing machine, and will charge about $5 to fix the DVD. It takes about 5 minutes. Your town almost definitely has a similar store.
Hand-held manual DVD buffers WILL NOT WORK, and could make the problem worse.
Generally, a DVD can be fixed if the damage does not go as deep as the reflective material inside the DVD, and if there are no cracks in the DVD. Melted DVD’s also cannot be fixed.
This solution does not address Microsoft’s liabilty . . . but hey . . . for $5 or so . . . your problems are over. Just don’t move your Xbox when there is a DVD in the drive, and you probably will never see the problem happen again (earthquakes excepted).
If you consider yourself as an Xbox 360 enthusiastic fan or gamer, then you must probably know what is the Xbox 360 three flashing red light error means.In this case, the Xbox 360 three red light error usually corresponds to hardware failure. Basically, the xbox360 has these signals that can assist you identify the existing condition of your Xbox. You could send the console for repair but this can take a long time and you might just come across the same trouble again in the future.Alternatively, there are many online guides that teaches you how to fix the xbox 360 3 red light error by yourself.There is a guide that demonstrate show to fix basically any error that your Xbox 360 can have in around an hour’s time.
Got disk scratched on the edge when my wife missed the ball and kicked the Xbox instead. Try polishing the disk with toothpaste, that made the scratches look better but still Xbox cannot read it. Then, I tried rubbing disk with thin layer of Vaseline and wipe dry with clean cloth. That did the trick, my wife can play with Manchester United again.
My Dance Central disk has a perfect circle scratch from regular use.
Why is Microsoft so cheap about this? These disks cost them so little and they won’t take responsibility for shipping with a badly-designed and cheaply-manufactured opticl drive?
It’s pathetic. Micro$oft will always suck and I love it that Google and Apple are kicking their ass
Talking about the biggest p.o.s …..microsoft couldnt have put out a bigger paperweight. I’ve sent my xbox360 back 9 times over the few yrs its been out. Never to get anything but a free month card that when I put on my account it never added time for one. For 2 sometimes my xbox gone longer than a month. Last time I sent in they charged me $99. That breaks again 1 month later’start ripping apart myself figuring I can do as good as the monkeys they pay bananas to build them….it worked my xbox outside of plastic didnt overheat anymore…plus every 2 wks when I have to clean laser it easy to get at. Good games on xbox horrible system and no love from customer support.
my XBOX ( a nearly 3 years old one) destoryed my CoD BlackOps DVD while normal playing (sitting on the sofa, no jumping or something like this)
In XBOX Forum they won´t believe, saying it´s my fault. No official statemant found (since 4 years) about htat problem
For me (I have to say), only installing all games on disk, so using DVD a less as it goes (hope you can understand this). Also when XBOX is dying in future, I´m not sure to buy a new one. A new one with know errors ;-)? Í don´t want to talk about MS politics, but this ist not a service to customers (in that way, when it´s planned to publish the new model of Xbox? Are there some thoughts about?)
many greetings from hamburg / germany
Lutz
I have taken my COD disk to a local dealer, they have repaired it (very glad about that) for nothing
I’m in South Africa. I’m using the older Xbox 360 console (Jasper chipset). I bought a kinect 2 days ago. First night of playing Kinect adventures (about 30-60min) was fine. Last night I switch on my xbox (I’m still on the older dashboard) and start the game. It doesnt start up, just black screen then quit to dashboard. Try again and it takes forever to load. After eventually getting the game up and running I start playing. My wife and I were about 5 min into the game when I get a disc read error. Pop the disc out and hey presto, it’s scratched.
I tried wiping it cos it looked like just surface scratches but to no avail.
I didnt even want to try my new copy of UFC Trainer for fear of scratching that too.
Hi all. I’m in Washington State and just purchase the xbox 360 4Gb machine. Christmas day I took my time and setup everything. Put in the adventure disc and heard some rattling noise. At this point I felt something might be wrong. It allow me to create a profile but will not go any futher. I tried several times and gave up. It kept coming up saying disc error. I purchase mine from the local airbase nearby. I will take the game back to see if I can get a replacement.
Hi. Thanks to everyone from Barcelona, Spain for your posts. Santa Claus brought us an X-box + Kinect + Adventure game bundle. Great fun on day one …. On day two the system was asking us to clean the disk. It had a ‘perfect scratch’ How come we had no seen it before? have you kids been doing silly things with the (expensive) toy Sant brought us?? No. The answer was in this post: we have replicated with accuracy the scratch which comes in the pictures of the main article. Gosh. And thanks again.
Looks like someone set their Xbox on its side or set it up-right while it was on with a disc inside. LOL! Blaming everyone but yourself.
I own many console, and been play games start from the very first NES. Never have any problem with any console, NES, MegaDrive, Dreamcast, PS1, PS2, PS3, Wii.
Until recently my wife want a xbox 360 due to its kinect can detect full body movement.
After we purchase it and We put the new XBox flat on a solid shelf. (We have wooden flooring) and put the kinect adventure and setup the system and kinect, after the game load and start. We hear a high spinning sound from the XBox, and then a disc read problem message pop. So take the dvd from the dvd tray, and notices a ring scratches on the disc.
Took the whole unit/package back to ASDA, they refuse to exchange it/refund due to the scratches on disc. (Even they have the 28 days return policy)
The only advices they give us is buy another game and try it. So we bough another game on HMV with 1 year disc repair protection schema.
Put it in, setup again, same things happen. And now got stuck, as ASDA still claim it is not the fault of the machine, and they say microsoft won’t accepting it, if the disc is scratch.
And now i stuck with a machine that would scratch disc and nothing i can do. Totally bad experience with this, as was orginally bought this for my wife and my up coming son as a family console.
I personally think microsoft shall solve this issues, PC and other console have no such problem, but why xbox have? Espeically the price tag isn’t cheap.
I just got an xbox 360 (slim) with kinect. It has been less than a week. No red ring of death yet, and I have had it on for a LOT of time, BUT…
My copy of fallout ultimate edition was just destroyed in the fashion outlined in this article.
I did not open the drive while it was spinning.
I did not move the xbox 360
I did not cut power while I was playing.
Fortunately, I bought the scratch guard replacement additional warranty from gamestop, so they will be compensating for xbox’s flaws.
The agent at Gamestop confirmed this issue was quite common.
I have been a long time PC user, including with systems that have sideways aligned CD/DVD drives, and this is the first time I’ve had a drive coaster a game within 24 hours.
That said, I put a lot of those hours into playing the game, and the it was oriented sideways at the time (as per the proper ventilation diagram in the instructions).
If this is a simple matter of the console needing to be horizontally aligned, why do they not simply SAY so?
Also of note, kinect adventures, which comes packaged with the hardware, involves JUMPING, which may be sufficient to cause these issues (though I have been lucky so far).
For those who believe misuse is required, think about the documented advised use of an xbox slim kinect package situated anywhere but the basement with the xbox 360 aligned as shown on the installation documentation.
Yeah, i have had many eaten discs! Only timss i had problems with my older model xbox was due to someone moving the xbox or something alike. Ive had my Slim now for less than a year and its ate plenty of my games. I know if u install them onto your hard drive the game is less used such as spinning, and things while playing games. Was in the middle of Resident Evil 5 when suddenly disc could not be read and bam im booted to the dashboard. Thanks microsoft i feel very valued that my $300 xbox wont even read discs… Also the Kinect is garbage it just sits atop my television and is never used just a gimmick get cash quick scheme. Hopefully the money from the kinects will surely go towards a better new console. Sigh you buy a game expecting to never have to pay a steep 30-60 bucks more than once but nope guess not with Xbox 360’s -__-
Replying to those who say “we are blaming are broken discs on someone else” is very wrong… My 360’s is flat on my entertainment center that isnt obstructed or bumped in any ways nor any times. I have it away from unrelated things so it doesnt over heat or sorrounded by clutter. I 100% believe it is a system/console error. The xbox must just simply over work its self which you think $300 would mean you have a well made product but something seems off.
I bought an Xbox 360 the other day. It was used, but seemed to be in good shape, no scratches or damage, it was clean, and I was able to see it running before I bought it. It has turned out to be an unbelievable turd. I bought 3 games for it, 1 used, 2 brand new. After 2 ays, all 3 discs are scratched beyond use. The first, and possibly second were due to me moving the system. I had no idea that gently moving a system could destroy the discs, I’ve owned every version of the Playstation, and it has never done anything like that.
I accepted that moving the system with spinning discs would cause the damage, so I went out and bought the third disc, this time being very careful not to touch the system at all (It rests on a concrete floor, so no vibrations).
I put this brand new disc in the system, and it wouldn’t even try to read the disc, just made a little noise, and then said “open tray”. I checked on-line, and found that people were solving this problem by hitting the system. I didn’t want any risk of the game being scratched, so I found an old CD, put it in, and smacked the Xbox, and it did eventually read. I swapped it for the game, the game loaded up and I had no problems. I went to play the game later that day, and got an error that the disc was un-readable, I opened the tray to find circular scratches all over this brand new disc.
At this point I’m on the fence as to whether or not I should try to get it repaired, or just smash it with a baseball bat to at least get some amusement out of my purchase. At first I thought I was paying the price for buying a used system, or that I simply got a lemon, but it seems that these are common problems to people with brand new systems as well.
It really boggles the mind that company would sell a product that is this flawed, and after all these years hasn’t addressed it. I’m also amazed it has such a strong following. In searching for solutions to my problems, I read posts time and time again with people saying “I’m on my 3rd, 4th, even 5th Xbox” I would never show that kind of loyalty and support to a company after being burned so many times by problems they obviously have no intention of addressing.
Anyways, that’s my rant about the Xbox, never again will I buying a console from Microsoft.
i think it should be microsoft’s responsibility to replace any damaged discs because there is a little segment of time in the factory that we like to call, “manufacturing” when the morons are supposed to be TESTING the equipment to make sure it works properly, now microsoft would have us believe that they did infact perform this necessity wich means…(wink wink) THEY KNEW the drives were bad and they never said anything about it.
now just incase you all think things have gotten better let me darken your spirits, i just bought a new xbox 360 less than 5 months ago, and it has the same problem, although so far it’s only scratched the top on my disc wich was HALO 4 BTW!
i ran the x360 vertical on it’s side, that’s why it did that, so please don’t run yours that way if you can help it, so far i haven’t had any vibration related scratches happen yet but that’s because i haven’t vibrated it and i DARE not try it to find out.
game disks for my 360 only last about a week before they get the ring of death… no kinect or vibrations, just a disk eating machine, I’ll be switching to PS4 when next gen machines come out… microsoft obviously are behind the 8 ball when it comes to quality control.
My xbox has been on a flat surface forever, no vibrations near the xbox or whatsoever. My xbox’s kill count has been steadily going up to a killing spree, or worse, rampage. It randomly starts eating my discs and has consumed the following games by now:
Assassins Creed 4 (unplayable now)
GTA 5 (bearly playable)
Fallout new vegas (freezes very often)
Elder scrolls skyrim (just happened)
modern warfare 2 (cant get past 2nd level, refuses to load)
gta4 (unplayable)
borderlands 2 (got the game for 2 hours when it started freezing, almost unplayable now)
forza 4 (2 of the 20+ circuits are working, rest isnt)
Dirt 3 ( lots of freezes)
bad company 2 (came broken in half out of the tray)
Dont get me wrong, i love my xbox. Only feeding it for more than 300 euros (around 440 us dollars) is just no fun to me anymore.
We have xbox 360 games that we got January 1st for new years party and they’ve been played twice. They both have huge burn rings and are unreadable. Every movie has been ruined that my kids put into it. Contacted xbox and was told to send it in for repairs and that it was our fault for either moving the console or letting g it overheat. I’m a single 41 year old mom. I don’t play these silly things
My 7 and 9 year old girls just learned this Christmas how to play it. How can it be possible that we’ve damaged it so soon?
Our xbox 360 just ate a game disc. One of my kids was playing and turned it off when he was done. Another one of my kids turned it back on and we heard a weird sound. Then it wouldn’t eject. This happens from time to time and we know how to use a paper clip to manually eject. When he did, the disc was not in the tray. It’s stuck in the console! Our xbox is a couple of years old, so no warranty. I’m going to have to go out and buy a new console and a new game. So frustrating!
People still use discs?! My god what is this Prehistoric times! On demand digital downloads people! Also if you have to buy a version cause it’s not downloadable (probably cause it sucks or isn’t very good) install it to the hard drive to cut down time the disc is used. That’s if your a fossil though.