This only regards the Toshiba/Samsung drives, as they don't have the rubber bumpers around the lens/laser.

I'll copy paste my post from the article just below. Both about the same problem...

Well, they're right about the T/S drive having no rubber bumpers close to the DVD drives lens.

BUT

As long as you don't move the drive while it's spinning, and having the console standing stable, it's almost impossible to get the disc to scratch. I have a T/S drive myself. I know at least 10 persons with a T/S drive. Never any scratches...

The most funny thing is (if you can read Dutch otherwise use babelfish), the research that has been done for this program Kassa said something completely different, read it here

http://www.hardware.info/nl...

In short they say:

Yep, the rubber bumpers are missing. That's a shortcoming of MS's product. BUT we have not been able to actually get the scratches in our lab, not even when we turned the console while spinning. NOT ANY. The discs came out without the scratch 'rings' as mentioned.

And they tested intensively. MS has acknowledged this problem in the mean time and will change the consoles if people want to including the discs.

If you ask me: I think those people have caused it themselves. I have no friend that got scratching like this using the console on a normal way. Their own research showed with intensive testing they couldn't reproduce the scratching. But, the rubber bumpers should have been there for sure.

Go read the link (with babelfish) and verify yourself!

Do NOT ever change the xbox360 from vertical position to horizontal if you got disc inside. This will most likely damage your game or what ever disc.

Here's a youtube video of one other test which really shows what happens.

they admit to their mistakes.

Ok, now that they've admitted problems with such a bog standard component like a DVD drive whats the big secret about the 3 red rings? Tell us the story there M$. Its time, dont you think.

EDIT: Oh I see someone disagreed with my statement. Don't you want to know why your Xbox keeps breaking down and what M$ intends to do about it? I know I do.

2ND EDIT: Ha, another disagree, but 2 agrees, as well. So from my own little poll of 5 five people (including myself) we can surmise that 60% of people whose X360's break down care about it and think M$ should tell us what the problem is, and 40% of people whose X360 have broken down, dont really care and think everything's cool.

so they are not honest to the customer all these times... if dutch TV haven't put that on the show... I doubt that MS still denied the scratchs disc...
how about red light??

honestly... MS had put a lot of junk quality on their 360~ technology advance... yeah ... for use in 2-3 years... quality and reliability ... NO~

Xbox 360 hardware is really flawed. the hardware is pure crap.

Microsoft DID talk about this issue, IN THE SYSTEM'S MANUAL!
It says not to tip the system over while a disc is in. And that's the statement that covers this exact issue.

If you leave your system stable on a good surface like you're supposed to, you will not have any problems.

Understanding the whole issue/10!

I have 2 360's and have yet to see a scratch! 360 isn't crap and I would still buy another one over another platform which I feel is crap!

I myself have also had 2 360's and know about 5 friends that have never had this problem. When you look at the big picture most customers dont experiance any of the problems some flaming fanboys claim to have on this site. Same goes for the other consols also. Someone hears about a problem 1 person has and they use it as flaimbait for the consol war agenda.

why buy that crapy console huh? the consoles engineering sucks big time.. the first time I saw the 360 diagram it really sucks. resistor and capacitors are junks too bulky.. compare it to PS3's chipsets engineering design was just meh..

It's good that Microsoft has admitted to these faulty consoles, now they should also put-out a statement on their websites about this problems and possibly repair/replace them. Every consumer deserves to get their money's worth considering how expensive these consoles are, and also the game softwares. And to those fanboys who keep defending that it might be the consumers' who are at fault - let me tell you, that you are also one. Don't defend these rich manufacturers especially on this sort of issues, they were definitely cutting on cost which has made them pay dearly.

Problem solved.

XBox 360 has flaws its kind of to late to be admitting that right now considering they have been waiting to tell the XBox 360 fans for 3 years.

The reason you dont here this about ps3 i bc theres no games to buy for the system to scratch

ROFL

they hid it in the 360 only section of this site...HAHAHA

but it came back and haunted their as$ i remember xboxfanboys was blamin the people who owns it and not microsoft..i was laughin so hard..why fight eachother when microsoft hardware is the main problem..

I know at least 5 people with a broke 360. But I know at least 10 with a broke ps3. Maybe that a good thing the more broken systems means the more replaced systems . Worked fine for sony ,even I went through 1 broke ps2: then got another one.

/chuckle

umm, i remember this 'secret' flaw being discussed about 4 months after launch- people were moving their console with the disc in and scratching up copies of PGR and perfect dark- microsoft told people not to move the console when the disc was being read (i.e spinning). they offered to replace copies of scratched games for people who were unfortunate to catch this flaw. they also moved to replace the offending samsung drives with new parts from hitatchi and in the past month, BenQ.

Gamefly also sent out a message to its subscribers about this issue at the same time, about 4 months after launch. It's fairly well known in the gaming circles.

i have yet to scratch a disc in my console while playing- i had a launch console and i am about to be using my 3rd console from microsoft as i seem to be burning out my dvd lens's with too much weed smoke, incense or endless Gears Of War frag-fests (!). both times i had my console replaced microsoft customer service was very helpful- the first console was replaced for free out of warrenty and the time i was given a yers Live subscription and a years warrenty for free as well as a 50% discount.

my new console will have the benQ drive in it which is supposed to be a lot quieter and more reliable- I'll let you guys know how it really is in a few days.

I saw the episode of Kassa and I was pretty surprised that Microsoft admitted the flaws (finally).

I am planning on buying an Xbox 360 next week... keep my fingers crossed that mine has "bump pillows".

ha

And best of all, my 360 is a launch console, I never heard of any problems with scratched discs unless if somebody tilted the 360 with the disc inside.

I had 2 cracked disc but none were scratched (I have a console made oct 2005 btw), the console works fine though. I remember reading that the newer drives all have rubber padding to prevent scratching so if you are so determined to see the rings of light flip when you move from horizontal to vertical then do so but please take the disc out first ;). None of us hopefully dont flip our PCs or DVD players while they are spinning disc, also DO NOT leave your console or any disc based deivce on top of a Subwoofer or right up next to it, it will cause the disc to bounce around and possibly crack.

We all spent alot of money on our games and contrary to beleif, neither microsoft, sony or nintendo can't defy the laws of physics and every reaction has an equal opposite reaction so shaking a console which is spinning at 10000 RPM is going to cause that disc to exsert most of its energy against the side of the drive in a fraction of a second.

I don't care what system I own. If I had a game console that broke down repeatedly, and the manufacturer took over a year to acknowledge the problem (while still avoiding an even larger one-red ring), that company would lose my support. I have never supported ANY company that ignored the problems of it's consumers. What I think is really crazy is that this seems to be the only venue where Microsoft is lacking. I love Windows. I love IE. I love Microsoft Office. So don't say I am choosing sides. Both companies make quality products, just of a different type. Oh well. If only Sony made the hardware and Microsoft developed the software for it. I can only dream.

On a side note (don't get mad, some of you guys are too serious)

THINGS 360 OWNERS DO WITH THEIR 360 TO SCRATCH CDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1. Dance?
2. Put them in a pillow cover and beat PS3 owners
3. Throw them across the room after dying in GeOW
4. Driveby 360 tosses at PS3 owners
5. Cuddle with them
6. Sleep with them
7. Have breakfast with them
8. Enjoy walks on the beach with them (sand really messes it up)
9. Share candlelit dinners
10 Take them to amusement parks

PLEASE ADD TO THE LIST IF YOU KNOW MORE!!!!!!

the 360 has so many problems,usually when a company puts a product in the market and people start reporting and complaining about glitches and hardware issues/red ring of death.the company has to make a recall of that product.they should admit to the other defect that bricks the system after a year in use....RECALL! RECALL! RECALL!

like i said many problems not just scratched discs but ALOT of red rings that warrants a total recall

but I have heard of a one or two cases one with my friend from Canada but MS fixed it. Don't try and spin this most CDs are still scratched by owner neglect by moving the 360 with a CD in it.

omg!! They should be selling that 360 crap in junkers.. There is NOTHING xbots can say to try and spin the fact that M$ f@#ked up..

and you xbots are so blind that you will try endlessly to explain when this is only happening and how and why, as if yall were M$ employees.. They were stoned while they were engineering that piece of s@#t.. PERIOD

Give me a break.. Better say: Yeah we got a lot of games right now but a sh|tty machine that won't play of all them before crapping out on me..

The less the bubbles... The more i'm gettin on xbots nerves.. yesssss

problem... i thought they were addressing the ring of death.. oh well

it's been a bad few days. First Guitar Hero's controller being all jacked up, then the patch bricking systems and to top it all off Microsoft admitting to one of the problems with the 360 (not the reason behind the rings of death, but a problem none the less).

Dreamcast .... Dreamcast!!!... Major Nelson....Major Nelson!!!....

who?...what??...huh???...who said that??!!

The anti MS post will never end its one thing to have an opinion about a story its another to go out of your way to spite a company with malice driven hate.

it would appear that a man with lack on intelligence said that.?

Also, i must be the luckiest man, the only piece of tech that has ever broke for me, was an ipod. and like every ipod breaks, so thats no biggy

i think people also don't know how take care of their products. i mean some carry 360 while a disk is spinning u can't blame microsft

OK, this clears some sh!t up.

Firstly, I don't think it comes down to people not taking care of their discs. Neither me, nor my brother have ever had damaged a disc deyond use (or even made it difficult to read) and I have never had any problem with discs in the 360...excpet for Gears of war.

The first one was my brother's disc in his 360 (I was playing), right in the middle of the menu montage, it stops. I took the disc out, and it had split from the centre of the disc outwards (not scratched - literally, split). This happened to two more discs in my brothers 360 - and most recently, in my 360.

We are fully aware of the problem with moving the console while the disc is in it, and so have never done so. And no other game we've played in either console has even been scratched.

This problem of the lens not having a cusion could be the cause, although I don't know why it only happens to Gears of War discs. Perhaps something to do with how the game streams content? I know about two other people on my friends list who have also had problems with their Gears discs (one says his disc has split, but he can still play it...the other just keeps having read error messages...again, only with Gears of War.)

@DJ

Except it's never happened to Oblivion, and we've played both just as much.

a gaming system has to be built to handle any type of roughness because its a gaming system the maker has to keep in mind that it do have people/kids that is goin to handle the system in a way they feel shouldnt affect the hardware that will damage it...come on dude if microsoft admits to this problem why are we debating about it the 360 do have problems including the red ring brick thing so stop defending microsoft and let them fix these problems

who the hell carries around their system while its running with a game in it?

fortunetly I'm lucky, i haven't had one problem with my 360. Even if i do, i can get it fixed for free so I'm happy. I didn't give up on my PS2 when it broke. I'm also wondering if the consoles that are having problems are the ones that came out at launch. I was smart to wait. I do that with every console.

Just because a console has many issues doesn't mean it wont sell. like the PS2.

Just how many of the 360 consoles 'sold' according to MS are replaced? Anyone have the metric? I just see people say ... "I've replaced mine 2 times" ... "I replaced mine yesterday" ... As an Xbox owner, its worrying. If I were MS, I'd concentrate more on hardware QA. Let's be honest, they are no experts when it comes to hardware at least from a manufacturing standpoint.

Got lucky I guess. My 360, and everyone else's 360 has never scratched a disc once. But we all got ours at launch.

If their admitting their`s a problem, it`s a good move.
cause their is.

so I called a couple weeks ago and complained about my drive being bunk on my system (which is one of the older ones) and was able to talk them down to $80.00 to repair it because my warranty was expired (by 3 weeks). I called today and mentioned this article and asked if they planned on doing any sort of recall and magically my system was still under warranty and will be fixed for free. kick ass.

the Red Ring of Death gets kicked off. We've seen it triggered by everything from firmware updates to game demos; most likely it deals with the OS firmware getting screwed up or something.

Got Phantasy star Universe and one of my Halo 2 discs scratched by the thing. Made an awful racket. Happened a lot when it was next to the subwoofer. I've since moved it and had no further issues.

Oh, and to the Sony Trolls who came in here... I'm still on my first 360, and my 5th PS2, 2nd PSP, 6th PSX...

Yeah, Sony never has hardware issues. Play a game for 48 hours and the console starts to whine.

I'm glad MS has admitted there was a problem and is offering repairs. Now I'm not trying to start a battle here, because I think the 360 is a great console, but I think it was lame on their part to even have this mistake to begin with. I mean spinning CDs and DVDs have been around for a loooooong time now and I don't see how they could forget these "bump pillows". I'm no egineer (or speller) but that just seems like neglagence (sorry about the spelling again). If I'm missing something correct me so I don't continue talking out my a**, but based on what I know and have read that's how I feel.

Sony still fails to acknowledge or accept responsibility that the PS1s had an over-heating issue and the 1st gen PS2s had faulty drives.

just the pinkish grid of DOOM that killed my first 360. *~*

Hopefully all the flaws have been worked out and the " ELITE " will live up too its name! :)

I had my Rainbow Six Vegas get scratched all to hell from this happening. When I called to return a new Xbox I asked if they would do anything about my game, and they said they couldn't. Not only that, but it took FOREVER before they decided it was OK for me to return my 360 for a new one. I had my warranty and everything, but I guess they thought this problem of mine was of my own fault. They kept asking me if I had moved the Xbox while it was in motion, and kept wanting me to do stupid trouble shooting BS. So, I had to sit and lie about doing the trouble shooting nonsense because no way was I going to actually do it all. I knew what the problem was, I had heard about it before, and I wanted a new Xbox. Finally, I got fed up and asked for a supervisor, and things took off much faster.

I buffed my disc and it works now, so I'm happy about that. But, I'm on my third 360 right now, and I'm not happy about that. Will there ever be a time when 360s stop falling apart?

GJJ isn't a liar. He's a true gamer. Why would he even care to lie about that anyway?

This kind of crap never happens with Nintendo consoles.

The first 360 i had started to eat my perfect dark zero and oblivion. The customer service guy tried to tell me it was my fault for tipping the 360 , untill i got heated with em , i was right there and the 360 never tipped or fell i didnt flip it or nothing. They told me to send it in, i got a new console around 5 days later and its worked fine.

In alot of cases this has occured , and its not from tipping the console while its playing.

i live in texas n i got the cd drive on the right
n thats the one they gave to me after it was
supposidly "repaired", it worked fine for about a
week n all of a sudden it started making this loud
@ss noise like the cd was flying around in there
n then it just stopped reading the games period, it
said to insert into xbox 360 system which didnt make
sense cuz thats what it was in!!! and now im in the process
of getting it "repaired" hopefully they dont send me another
f**ked up 360

My ex wife through my ps2 off a balcony 2 times and it worked fine ....it was the third time that killed it.

I guess its the same reason, I don't trust Microsoft. This is just like the launch 360s being defective and being sold despite Microsoft knowing about it. Now their machine damages the disks they play, I may still get a 360 but it maybe in the machines 3rd generation when its defects have been cleared. Yeah and Sony's the bad guy.

Wow thank you Microsoft, thank you very much for this mine breaks a few weeks ago and now they admit the drives suck ass, my friends broke too this week, same thing as my dvd drive and it was 3 months. I am calling them and going to get extremely pissed and make them fix this for free. I don't care if I took my console apart to put a new drive in, this is absolute bullsh*t

' ' According to a press declaration from Microsoft, the Xbox 360 can cause scratches. Initially the company denied to be guilty for the damage. Microsoft kept saying for months that the gamers themselves are responsible for scratches on the discs. ' '

ROFLFLFLFFOTOFL.

At least they're finally admitting it. Gamers harped on and on about the system scratching their discs (without moving the system, as MS alleged), and I think someone finally listened. It's just like the problem with their defective systems...first, they extended their warranty to a year, and second, added free shipping and an additional warranty on the repaired unit.

No, I'm not knocking MS or playing the fanboy (I remember the early defective PS2s quite well). But this is an ongoing concern. As someone who's gone through three systems in six months, I can tell you firsthand that they seem to have a quality control problem that definitely needs to be addressed.

A question for the posters here:

Someone told me at work that the majority of defective 360s are coming from one factory...someone has tracked the serial numbers (or something like that) and found that most of them originate in one place. Don't know what his source is for that statement, but if anyone knows if it's true or not, please let me know by posting a reply.

MS just wanted to save some money on their DVD drives. LOL

They owe us the new and improve Xbox360!!! forget this I say give it to us for free!!!! Heck give us a huge discount on the Black Xbox360 if we trade in our old one.

good they admitted to it, bad that it took them so long.

timing however could have been crucial for MS to admit this. it's sure not something you would do when your competitors are launching, and during xmas.

sales are slow, mainstream media is looking elsewhere so most casual gamers/soon to be xmas 07 buyers will likely never hear this news.

There is no such thing as a fanboy really, only if you really felt in love in a game will such thing will happen. Those who played HAlo for many years will surely love XBOX and of course will love 360. Me myself have had ps1 and ps2 and will surely get ps3 if the games that interest me come out that doesn't mean I am sony fanboy. I don't dislike xbox, I love 360 also. I like ps and 360, just enjoying games. I suggest you buy both consoles and stop crticising each other.Anyway, my 360 have no problem, I play for 3-5 hours daily.Pity some of those unfortunate gamers have to deal with the problems.

They should've admitted to it earlier. But as long as they know they have done wrong and are willing to fix it. Pretty soon your gonna see the wii and PS3 report on somthing that they made a mistake in.

this is just a part of MS's rushed production, but as long as they fix the defective parts then all will be good.

its good MS finally told the truth, but this only futher confirms what i've been thinking all along. busted systems don't lie. these were poorly made.

EDIT: d@mn what happened to my bubbles? i haven't even been on here.

from the sounds of it, you are not a fanboy. You like more than one console. Then agian you might have total hate for the Wii. If you dont, you arent a fanboy.

Thats a good thing btw.

You are just a fan, in other words you're normal.

I haven't had a problem with my 360 either.

But my PS2 just broke today!

just kidding, its funny how many people I've heard say their console broke the day they are talking about it, its almost like they are making it up.

But thats beside the point. Even with the bugs and stuff, a console can still be great. Just like the PS2. Especially when it can be replaced for free.

laffs @ MS but its good they admitted it

first red rings of death and now this! MS should go back to making software and not hardware.

Pardon me if this sounds a little stupid, but this affects the Toshiba/Samsung drives. As in Toshiba/Samsung built components shipped to MS for inclusion in their console. As in Microsoft didn't build them. Comprende? Something like this probably should have been picked up in quality control, but unless you can prove to me that MS ordered the drives without rubbers, then I fail to see how this can be blamed on MS