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Supreme Court to hear Xbox 360 disc scratching case

Back in the day, the Xbox 360 had a few issues, not only were red rings of death a problem but at one point, discs were being scratched as well. A lawsuit that launched nine years ago over scratched game discs has now escalated to the US Supreme Court, where the justices will decide whether or not Microsoft should face a class-action lawsuit.

The people involved in the lawsuit are alleging that Microsoft had a design defect in the Xbox 360 that led to discs being scratched and potentially ruined. The case has gone through a lot of appeals but has not yet reached the trial stage.

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As Polygon points out, back in 2012, a federal judge ruled that there were not enough complaints to warrant a class-action suit against Microsoft but this was overturned in 2015. Testimonies in the case claim that Microsoft was aware of a disc-drive defect that could cause damage if the console was repositioned in a certain way by users. Apparently solutions were discussed at Microsoft but nothing ever became final.

The case also alleges that Microsoft had already received 55,000 complaints about disc-scratching as early as 2008.

KitGuru Says: This case has been going through the motions for nine years now and has yet to reach a conclusion. While I have heard plenty of Red Ring of Death stories, I haven't heard nearly as much about discs getting scratched while in the console. Did this issue affect any of you back in the 360 days? 

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51 comments

  1. Robert Lee Dunn SR

    I’ve had 3 Xbox 360’s an at some point they have had that issue.

  2. Discs could be scratched if the Xbox ever moved while a game was in it. I’ve seen games get scratched when standing up the xbox from the laying position to the upright position, from the system getting knocked over to the laying position, and just being picked up and moved while on. something inside scratches the disc to hell the moment it gets moved

  3. i’ve had multiple games with scratches caused by the system, but if u ever called xbox support, not only did i get a replacement game for free, but i also got a couple 3 months of free gold for each disk scratched. there shouldn’t be a class action law-suit if they actually replaced the damaged merch

  4. Oh hell yea. I had just bought the 360, and maybe 3 days later i bought the GH2 bundle. I turned it on, it was lying on its side, and i picked it up and moved it about 1/2 foot foreward and CRUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNCH….. disc was ruined. I felt so cheated and wanted cartidges back hahahaha.

  5. When I first got MW2, I can’t remember what happened if I bumped my desk or if I changed how my console was sitting, made rings all around the disc.

  6. MW2, first day of ownership and I got a perfect circle scratch. Also happened to Assassin’s Creed III.

  7. you obviously don’t understand how class actions work.

  8. Never affected me. I had two consoles red ring, the first was under warranty, but the second one wasn’t and Gamestop had a deal on used consoles with games included that would have cost me less money than to send my second red ringed console back to Microsoft to be repaired at my expense so I went that route instead. Never suffered any significant disc wear in any of the 3 consoles, though. I assume from the article that people were positioning the console upright on end? I have always kept mine flat as a base for my monitor, so that may be the reason why.

  9. Bob Dole you’re too old to understand the way the game is told

  10. If the console moves it scratches the disc in the tray. I’ve worked in a video game store for years and have seen countless hundreds of discs scratched and most of them were because the unit was positioned vertically and therefore able to shake while the disc was spinning in the tray.

  11. Yep. Happened a few times, before I wised up.

  12. no I don’t, besides from the fact that no one was actually injured or hurt or suffered any sort of traumma from this experience, they lost a couple games that were replaced for free and they were already compensated for their losses via the free gold subscriptions. oh wait? compensated for losses by anyone who filed a claim? you obviously need brush up on your own definitions before calling out others

  13. Seems like user error to me. Why would you move a console with something worth $50 spinning at 100’s of RPMs?

  14. It’s funny because Microsoft was beat out by Sony in the 7th generation by about 1 Million units and people like you kept buying them after they broke. The 360 had a 54.2% and you fuckers kept buying them racking up the 360 units “sold” compared to the PS3’s 10% failure rate that still kicked your fucking ass

  15. If your coffee table gets bumped it shouldn’t destroy your game

  16. Microsoft intentionally sold a faulty equipment and didn’t fix the issue when they became aware of it. They let you fuckers deal with the inconvenience of ruined games. They deserve to be sued

  17. The majority of people have had about that amount because you kept expecting your next Xbox to be the one that didn’t break. I wonder how many of Microsoft’s “sold” units were to the same person multiple times

  18. I can’t believe this is still a thing…..move on ffs lol

  19. Between my brothers and I, we went through 9 of those darn things. All but one of those was under warranty when they broke. That one that wasn’t under warranty? My mom and brothers sold my N64 collection to pay for it because “I wasn’t using them.” Oh I was pissed

    I’m never buying an xbox. Heck,maybe we should start a class action suit against Activision/Bungie for scamming us on Destiny.

  20. Likely true… but xbox did advertise it vertical if I remember right.

  21. Lawsuits take a very long time to happen so if we just “moved on” microsoft would never get their appropriate punishment, in fact nobody would ever get a punishment because since it takes years to happen. Microsoft knew about the defects that are costing consumers 100’s of dollars and never did anything about it.

  22. Yeah, you think scratched games are bad? How about just turning all our hard work and money into nothingness by releasing DLC that makes all our guns/armour useless. Screw you Destiny.

  23. Back in the 90’s we had things called Discman. Nary a CD was ever scratched as we walked, jogged, and generally moved around with them. The technology was there to not have a caddy scratch a disc at a viberation, shock, or movement.

  24. it’s against the law to knowingly sell defective goods.
    just because they are willing to replace the disk and give you a couple cookies, does not negate the issue of them violating consumer laws.

  25. your injury was the fact that you couldn’t play those games until they were replaced. giving you some xboxlive coupons is pathetic. especially when they were forcing you to pay for online when you had the ability to play online all along until they decided to put up a paywall.

  26. This just happened to me last week. Typically we haven’t used our Xbox regularly until now that my daughter is old enough to play. Two weeks ago we moved the console and then got an error message stating that Xbox can no longer read the disc. $50 bucks down the toilet for a brand new game that she only played a couple of times totaling 2 hrs play time. Should I call Microsoft and demand they replace the disc???

  27. Except the Discmans we had when we were kids had that little thing in the middle with ball bearings to SECURE the disc, it didn’t lay flat in a tray like on the 360.

  28. I’ve bumped the stand the 360 was on while it was running and never got a scratch on my discs.

  29. >console plebs
    pc master race reporting in

  30. I have like 3 scratched disks b/c of this issue.

  31. and sony got their ass kicked by hackers and millions of people’s personal info was compromised in the process. Your Sony fan boy is showing, tuck it in. 😉

  32. Used the thing for over ten years, never had a scratched disc, and never heard from anyone I knew who had that problem. Obviously, not saying that it wasn’t a problem, just wondering how big of a problem it was. Especially since MS compensated people anyway. But people are rarely ever satisfied with costumer service so that probably doesn’t matter to the haters.

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  34. Kinda late huh?? as good a console the 360 was it had alot of things going wrong with it , the scratched discs could be avoided by not standing the console up, but what about the red rings of death,i have 3 of them, an arcade, elite and reg, finally gave up and never got a slim, the disc would also crack when put into the cases that they still use today(probably due to inferior discs being used), micro transactions that would sometime charge you but you would not get the product. instead of bill gates giving his fortune to charity he should reimburse everyone who bought this inferior product. at least the xbox one is an improvement.

  35. Used units and warranty exchanges don’t count towards sales dumbass, only new units sold do. Also, there are just as many PS3’s with the yellow light out there as 360’s with red ring.

  36. even if the disk thing was not an issue for everyone, the red ring of death was and it was like everyone xbox 360 had a timer on it for when it was not playable anymore.

  37. Ok, first, the consoles only scratched the discs if moved when the disc was in the console. No other time. Now my question: Every single CD player that was not meant to be moved scratched discs when moved. There are caution labels on every disc player that says “do not move with disc inside”, so why did these idiots move their Xboxes while the discs were inside? Set the damn thing down in the position you want it, and leave it. No more scratched discs. Problem solved.

  38. they did. But, if you notice, they stopped demonstrating them in the vertical position, and they also put warnings on the box saying not to move the device with a disc in it.

  39. no, its not. the xbox one is a POS with a gaming tag. In reality, it is just an over glorified cable box.

  40. Not being a smart ass, but how did you wise up?

  41. How hard did you “bump” it? I hope alcohol was involved. Why would you put yourself in a position to bump something, that hard, a $400 piece of hardware is sitting on?

  42. True, I have had 4 360’s 1 of which did scratch disks, so Microsoft should have to pay repercussions

  43. They never compensated

  44. I have a couple of Xbox 360s in my home and I do remember my stepson’s Skyrim being ruined because the Xbox scratched a ring around the outer edge.

  45. Same, but with Fable 3. Thankfully Gamestop replaced it for me since they hadn’t even offered me warranty on it like they were supposed to. 😛

  46. I’ve read different stories. I know this was an issue in the Netherlands, where a consumer program tested the Xboxes and found an issue, and Microsoft compensated in some way. Replacing the broken games and such.

    Or are we talking about what constitutes compensation?

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  48. Bought a PC.

  49. The issue is that they knew about it prior to release

  50. They used to do, afaik

  51. The Beatles