Microsoft has this week to explain Xbox 360 disc scratching

Mike Bantick
Monday, 04 June 2007 11:17

Opinion and Analysis

The European Commission for Consumers (ECC) has given Microsoft to the end of this week to explain a number issues raised by Dutch TV show Kassa.  Reports of disc scratching have been around since the release of the Xbox 360, but this is the first formal action asking for a response from Microsoft.


Scratching of discs was one of the first possible issues to come to the fore post Xbox 360 launch, and has bubbled away in the background without much of a concerted effort from either front (consumer or Microsoft) until now.

Dutch consumer orientated TV show Kassa recently brought the issue into the limelight, at least in Holland, with the ECC taking up the gauntlet to progress a “please explain” to Microsoft.

Visiting the Hague recently European Commissioner for Consumers Meglena Kuneva discussed the issue, confirming her request to Microsoft to answer a “number of questions”, specifically whether disc scratching had been experienced in other markets around the world.

Personally I have never experienced the disc scratching problems both with game discs or DVD’s played back in the Xbox 360.  But I have had other reliability problems; the dreaded “ring of death” error killed my post launch Xbox 360.

Over at www.hardware.info in March, a nicely constructed test to try to nail down if the Xbox 360 was particularly prone to disc scratching turned out some interesting results.

In conclusion it was found that moving the Xbox 360 during play did indeed cause the scratching the can lead to a useless disc.  This practice is specifically addressed in the Xbox 360 manual as a way of having your warrantee voided.

But they test goes on, and the conclusions are; A vertically deployed Xbox 360 could be more prone to movement and thus the disc scratching problem, and that other similar disc drives have compensating buffers deployed around the laser lens.  The Xbox 360 does not have these buffers installed; it is the laser lens that has been identified as the source of the scratching.

Whether Microsoft bows to the ECC with a statement will be interesting to watch.  Microsoft has consistently denied that the scratching is an endemic part of the Xbox 360 design, most likely this will be the guns that it sticks to over the coming days.