The 360 has a bit of a history of grinding grooves into discs--I have the replaced copies of Phantasy Star Universe, Oblivion, and Enchanted Arms to prove it--but apparently it got especially bad in the consoles made in December 2006. Those afflicted went the usual route of bitching and moaning to anyone who would listen, but Microsoft remained hush on the matter until Dutch television show Kassa forced their hand.
Kassa did a number of tests on the consoles and recorded the entire thing, just to make sure no-one could call shenanigans. As it turns out, the units' TSST drives were missing parts that stabilized the disc, which could result in the game discs getting scratched. Oops.
Microsoft's official response to the problem goes like this:
Due to the fact that we did not participate in the experiment done by
Kassa and have little insight into the methodology that was used, we cannot comment specifically on the outcome. While we are aware that discs can potentially be scratched through normal wear and tear, we have not received any widespread reports of the issue highlighted here.
There are millions of Xbox consoles in use today and we know that the majority of our customers are having a great gaming experience. That said, it is important to us that all of our customers have the best gaming experiences possible, and these claims are obviously very concerning to us. We encourage any Xbox customer who believes that their discs have been scratched in the same manner as identified by
KASSA, to contact us at www.xbox.com/supportor 1-800-4-MY-XBOX for additional information. We will examine the console and make appropriate repairs if necessary in order to restore the console to full working order, as well as provide customers with information on how to obtain replacement discs should they need them.
Xbox 360 scratching discs? Maybe, says Microsoft [Engadget]
