Microsoft knew about Xbox 360 disc-scratch problem, employee claims Microsoft knew prior to the Xbox 360’s launch that the console can damage discs if gamers tilt the unit while a disc’s spinning inside, documents from a lawsuit focused on the problem reveal. The revelation was made by Hiroo Umeno, a Microsoft programmer, in an ongoing case that was filed with the Seattle District Court in …
I just cant understand this. I can't be the only person that sets up consoles/cd\dvd players/computers, in a place that means im not going t ohave to move it around, after i have put a disk in.
Im not taking the p1ss here, can anybody give me a reason why you may NEED to tilt the damn thing in the first place???
Someone please explain to me what kind of moron tilts their console about? Do these same people tip their dvd players up whilst they’re watching a film? Perhaps after loading the dishwasher, they lay it on its side? No? Well they should be told not to be so fucking stupid with their consoles then.
So, in normal operation, you put a disc in the player, go sit down on the sofa and proceed to play the game, right?
What possible reason would there be, after having put the disc in, to pick up the player and tilt it forward or to the left?
I can accept the odd case of your cat jumping up on the shelf where the player is and knocking it over.
Maybe it's a case of 55,000 idiots seeing a sticker which says "DO NOT tilt the player forward or to the left after inserting disc!" and saying to themselves "Gee, I wonder what'll happen if I do that?"
One simple question.
Why would you even consider messing around with your 360 while it is switched on and
running. Anybody who does deserves what they get.
You don't pick your TV or your DVD player up while it switched on and move it around the room and lay it on its side. because guess what it would get damaged or something would break. Guess what people DVD players radios 360s all have movie spinning DVDs and Cd's and guess what happens with any sudden movements to the CD area. that's right SCRATCH. grow up shut up come live in the real world and stop pratting around with your electricals while there in use and have games spinning in the drive or I'm going to come along and point and laugh at you for being so stupid
tilting a console with a disk spinning inside can damage the disk? I didn't really need a warning to spot that one, as i have half a brain. Jumping up and down next to the console while the disk is spinning probably has the same effect.
Maybe a warning that using 360 disks as a frisbee can damage them should be added too!
Is this not nonsense? If I started shaking my 360 around while it was powered up and spinning a disk, something would likely get damaged. I'd expect that. And I wouldn't blame MS. I don't need a warning label to tell me that.
If I ingested my 360, it would likely cause a lot of damage to my xbox and myself. I didn't see a warning label stating that, it is in fact a guess. I don't need a warning label to tell me that, nor would it be MS's fault for providing me with the xbox.
MS should replace the disks as a goodwill gesture and issue letters to people who request a disk swap telling them not to be so stupid in future. In those words.
Seems folks are daft enough to move a 360 whilst its playing a disk or keeping it on its vertical axis.
I dont think you should ever use a disk drive vertically unless the drive mechanism has a laptop syle drive with the spindle clips that hold the disk in place. They may say you can but nahh dont trust it.
I always keep my 360 laying horizontal and I havent had a scratched disk at all in over two years.
Keep em flat guys!
You're all a bit defensive aren't you? I can pick up my laptop with a CD spinning and it's fine. If this was about PS3s causing CD damage from people shaking them I expect you'd be all over it shouting about how crap Sony hardware is. You can't though, because we're not heard any such stories. So maybe 360 users are just a bit more violent with their beloved console?
I suppose none of the people claiming that anyone daring to move a CD is mentally challenged ever heard of such a thing as a CD walkman? Plenty of spinning disc devices can cope with being tilted while in use, including most games consoles, and some of them can cope with relatively violent movement.
That said, when my launch-day PS2 got knocked over while playing Tekken, dislodging and scratching the disc, I did the sensible thing. Shrugged and resolved to put it somewhere safer next time, that is, not sued Sony. Never had that problem with the 360, as it's neatly stacked under the TV at all times.
These people must have biceps like elephant's legs. The idea that the dsic scratching was in any way caused by people picking the unti up and tilting it around is nonsense.
There's a well documented flaw with these units, that is damaging game discs - and it sure as hell caused by you average lardy Xbox player, suddenly developing a strong urge for physical exercise!
I stuck a knife in one of my discs and pulled it hard along and it's caused a massive scratch in it.
Can I sue Microsoft because they didn't say I shouldn't do this on my XBox 360's box?
This isn't an XBox only thing- I've seen plenty of devices that it has been suggested you shouldn't tilt during operation many DVD Writers and Bluray players for starters.
God only knows why you'd move such a device about when it's turned on.
I'm no fan of Microsoft, and I'm not a gamer - but I can't see why Redmond is taking flak over this.
Tilting a console whilst it's running can scratch disks?
Then don't bloody well tilt it!
Why on Earth should anyone want to do so whilst it's running?
Or is this (and the class action) proof that the stereotypical gamer is, indeed, of limited intellectual capacity?
Console gamers have always been "different" to computer game players, yes?
Cut the console-rs some slack, guys!
Meantime, this did happen to us.
My kids leave the Xbox on all the time.
At 8 years old they're normal, not morons, and this is normal (if frustrating) behaviour for somebody their age.
Meantime my wife, perhaps not the most computer literate or mechanically minded, moved the Xbox which was not in use at the time... disk was still spinning.... £50 game ruined.
Does no-one remember the original Playstation?
You used to have to tip it to get some disks to work. Near the ends of their lives, most PSXs were used sideways. Maybe the XBox users are old PSX owners trying to ... aww, who am I kidding. They're idiots.
@stefan
Here's some punctuation for you to use in your next post: "........,,,,,,,,"
I think it is normal to tilt the Xbox around once it is turned on because I might want to change the location of the xbox, or even plug in a memory card or new controller. I should be able to do it without concern for disc scratching.
Also the Xbox was designed to be used vertical or horizontal, so having it horizontal will stop scratching, fine. But fact remains that it should also be able to do vertical, it looks better vertical in my opinion.
Do newer revisions of the cosole scratch discs, I have not heard of this problem with PS2/PS3.
This is not just a fault with tilting the console, my 360 has scratched discs while perfectly still. It was made a little better after I moved it off my desk (which according to microsoft support, my typing could of caused the console to tilt too much). After making 100% sure the discs were being scratched without moving the console I phoned xbox support again, after what must of been close to an hour conversation I got permission to send in photo's of my discs. After sending in the photo's a week later I had had no response from microsoft. After phoning a 3rd time I was told abruptly that the xbox 360 does not scratch discs unless you move the console while it is in operation.
My general assumption is that due to manufacturing differences some xboxes are worse than others, mine being especially bad. Others you wouldn't have to tilt much to cause problems. Since microsoft refuse to acknowledge the issue theres nothing you can do.
I can't think of another disk based console that's ever had this problem, in fact I believe this suit has an expert stating that other manufacturers take steps to avoid this problem (many of which it appears Microsoft investigated and ruled out due to cost). Bear in mind the disk replacement only counts for Microsoft software, so be careful around your 360 when playing 3rd party titles! You'd think they'd have thought this through, especially considering they designed the 360 to be used on its side... or maybe they did think it through but thought "forget about the users", as the lawsuit alleges.
Hey, as an oldie I'm happy to avoid tilting drives. I remember when people would 'prove' that a vertical drive was impossible.
However, most people now exect their portable CD drives and hard drive based ipods to cope with tilting, jogging and a lot more besides. Kit has to be designed to cope with the odd bit of abuse. The Xbox can't claim exception circumstances, there's a clue in the term 'consumer hardware'.
I guess you and I are just a couple of old farts, these youngsters don't
remember anything before flash players.
Floppy drives used to cope with a good old shake, and the hard drive seems up to it. Does the PS3 have a no tilt warning?
Perhaps a die on tilt feature like pinball machines would be a good addition?
"It’s worth noting that Microsoft has already issued several ‘fixes’, including a disc replacement programme for gamers and a warning sticker placed on new Xbox 360s that titling the console with a disc inside could result in disc damage."
So could Ford have gotten out of the Firestone types problem by putting a warning label on them "WARNING: Using these tyres can cause you to crash"?
What are they doing? Feng Shui? I can't say I've ever felt the need to tilt any console I've ever owned, as far back as the Mega Drive, though I may have angled my ZX Spectrum askance during Daley Thompson's Decathalon. Especially not whilst playing anyway.
Microsoft should have thought more deeply about designing their console for morons.
I can't believe I'm using the Saint Bill icon.
Mine was left flat and still scratched discs from day one. I got a load of tosh from an MS-employee, telling me to keep the unit horizontal, on a vibration-free surface etc. I reminded her that I've never seen this happen with any other optical disc readers/writers I've purchased over the years. I highlighted her to the well-documented problem to which she made no comment. If MS knew nothing about the problem, wouldn't she be surprised and a bit more sympathetic?
There's an identical DVD-drive available for PCs: these units have a protective resin around the laser housing, the XBox ones don't. When the disc spins up, it knocks against the housing and the give is all in the plastic of the disc. This happens when the XBox is reading data from the disc; typically when lots of data is required for the application running (graphically-intensive routines).
Eventually, the disc wears out at the spot and is rendered unreadable.
Dont have this problem so it *could* be considered logical to extend this to other DVD players/consoles.
However the xbox is a data drive and spins many times faster, but who knew that? I did, but im not your average Joe.
MS should have had a better centre disc capture mechanism, or a suitable warning. ie this is not an ordinary DVD/CD drive!
Many consoles are stored beneath/beside the telly and pulled out for use, resulting in frequent (and not unanticipated) movement...
Sorry, I have to post this anonymously for reasons that will become clear...
I used to work for Compaq at a time when they were feeling the squeeze, shortly before they were snapped up by HP.
They were working on a secret rnage of budget, unbadged, non-compaq branded desktop PCs that would be sold direct, and via stores like PCWorld.
My job was to evaluate the components they were using for quality and failure expectency.
One of the components was a CD ROM drive. In order to save a few pennies per build the drives had the normal tray loading device with a spindle, but they did NOT have the usual magnetic spindle cap that drops down to stabilize the disk once the tray is closed.
The result of not having the spindle cap was that any rotational movement of the drive would result in the disk crashing into the tray and or drive case and damaging the disk beyond use.
Sounds like MS Penny pinching to me in this case too.
Someone will have worked out they will save more in construction costs than they will eventually and inevitably pay out in a class action suite.
I think it is normal to tilt the Xbox around once it is turned on because I might want to change the location of the xbox, or even plug in a memory card or new controller. I should be able to do it without concern for disc scratching.
Also the Xbox was designed to be used vertical or horizontal, so having it horizontal will stop scratching, fine. But fact remains that it should also be able to do vertical, it looks better vertical in my opinion.
Do newer revisions of the console scratch discs, I have not heard of this problem with PS2/PS3.
Well, since the complaint is that you DON'T have to shake it about but merely tip it to the left or forward and that misalignment from horizontal (not violent movement) causes the disk to unlock and drive into the laser head, which doesn't seem to be a problem for ANY OTHER CD drive in a computer IN THE WORLD, I would say that someone somewhere sourced the cheapest shit drive around and didn't check to see if it was degraded stock and then sold it to a front-room games playing public.
But if you want to exaggerate just so you can defend Microsoft, go ahead.
We don't believe you.
Doesn't seem to be a problem with iPods which spin MUCH faster and have heads MUCH closer to the disk. Doesn't seem to be a problem with ANY CD walkman. Car based CD players don't rip your CD a new one when you go over a speed bump while playing Slayer.
So why should these drives be so picky?
Because their cheap resourced shit sold for premium prices?
Probably.
My bro had an xbox which scratched several discs, even though he never moved it and it was horizontal. Moving it why its working is a no brainer, you dont do it. Sounds like a case of mild propaganda blaming the customer for a problem that is actually MS.
My xbox is sat vertical and has never scratched a disc, but has had a new motherboard.
If it wasnt a fault with the machine they wouldnt issue new discs at all would they? Lets face it, the build quality if shoddy at best, they cut corners and they are paying for it now. Sadly so are some customers.
I hate xbox but it's normal. it even happens with PS. but yeah if you tilt the machine while it's got a disk in it spinning, that's your fault not xbox's but there are articles out there that state that if you have your xbox or ps on it's side then chances are the disks will scratch. Most times it's due to being unleveled and when you spin somthing on an angle it's going to wobble all over the place. so anyone who buys the upright stands or just places these machines on their sides. well that's a risk you are going to have to take.
STOP SUING FOR STUPID ISSUES
IF YOUR MACHINE EXPERIENCES SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION AND BURNS DOWN YOUR GAME ROOM WHERE EVER IT MAY BE I AM SURE YOUR HOUSE WILL GO WITH IT, THEN YOU MIGHT HAVE A GOOD FIGHT ON YOUR SIDE. BUT A DISC? COME ON.
Blame the customer. There is large amounts of anecdotal evidence that says it's not moving the 360 that scratches the discs, and that the 360 just decides it does not like your disc anymore. No movement required...
Still I suppose it gives the Xbox lovers out there a reason to let Microsoft off the hook (again) for making shoddy hardware...
In my opinion, software publishers, music labels etc, should all replace faulty discs and here is the reason why:
You have purchased a license to use the copyrighted works and you have not actually purchased anything else. Faulty media has not expired your license to enjoy the copyrighted works.
Many years ago, I was reinstalling my PC and the 2nd install floppy for Lotus 123 was bad - I blame the floppy drive because I never cleaned it. However, Lotus Corp happily sent me a replacement disk in exchange for sending them the faulty disk and enough postage for them to send me a replacement. That seems very fair and reasonable to me.
I think that any company selling works and who will not replace faulty media should inform people that they are purchasing the whole works and should therefore treat the media as a master - ie, the buyer can make further copies, resell, etc etc because they are owners of the works. In doing so, they don't need to furnish the new owner with replacement copies should their master fail.
My PSX (the last model before the PSone) sometimes had the "tilt me to work" problem as well. IIRC, it was because the laser cart couldn't move all the time due to the plastic gears wear and tear; tilting it would give the cart some help in moving, thanks to Sir Isaac Newton's best friend. ;)
Sony seems to have learned about this, because the PS2 and PS3 not only corrected this, but also are capable of working in both horizontal and vertical configurations. Why can't MS do the same?
By the way, my PSX system died early this year ... because of a power surge. I think it outlived most PSX's, PS2's, and a damn high number of 360's. Now that's quality!
Gods, I work selling preowned consoles and pc gubbins to the general populace and am ALWAYS getting people trying to sell in 360 disks with lovely big rings carved into the disks... every single one of them has a 360 sat vertically "like on the tv ads".
Of course, it's not just 360s that will do this, and console sat on its edge has a chance to do it.. 360s just seem to do it if you walk past them heavy footed :P
LIE IT FLAT YOU NUMPTIES!
The people behind the tills listening to the PA play alestorm while swigging coffee and explaining to you very very very slowly that your console chewed the disk knows what they are on about.
Bloody yanks are just lawsuit happy. Get over it already. The bloody company put disclaimer stickers on new units so you idiots won't tilt them while a disc is spinning. What kind of idiot tries to tilt the unit while I disc is spinning up in it anyway? Someone who wants to break something and sue the bloody company who made it just to make a fast buck?? BLIMEY!!!!
Is a spinning disc inside an XBox or anywhere not just like the spinning bit of a gyroscope?? The whole point of them being that they'll try and continue to spin in whatever orientation they are in when the frame (in this case the XBox) is moved. Now XBoxen are not gyroscopes and can't accommodate this freedom of movement... surely people should understand the pretty simple physics involved here and that this would cause excessive forces and hence damage. I mean who hasn't held a bike axle with a spinning wheel attached and moved the axis perpendicular to the plane of the wheel to feel the forces involved??
(And pity the fools for buying anything MS made/wrote/cobbled together from spare parts)
I wonder why neither Nintendo nor Sony have been sued for something like this, given that all consoles use spinning discs... Is it that only morons buy Xbox? Is it that for some reason Xbox owners feel the urge to shake their consoles once they have inserted discs? or is it a quality problem in that little piece of cr@p?
So, 55000 morons on the loose, or a company that doesn't give a dam about the quality of its products... I'd like to hear what Occam has to say about that
My 360 was positioned horizontally, and my cat jumping up onto the cabinet (not even actually touching the xbox itself) caused disc death. It doesn't take much.
The screaming you hear during an earthquake isn't your terrified neighbors- it's your pissed-off xbox-playing neighbors, who all just lost their discs at once.
Ok I admit the XBox has it's issues and certainly M$ as a whole does (and we all know I have zero love for M$ or any of it's figure heads). But come on, blatant stupidity is blatant stupidity. Unless the units have laptop style drives with a press clip spindle, tilting any of them while the disk is spinning is asking for trouble. Sounds to me like this is yet another lawsuit for the sake of filing a lawsuit.
Dozens of posts claiming people are stupid to move an Xbox while it is reading a disk & the law suit is frivolous, totally miss a couple of major points:
1) This is happening with Xbox 360's and only Xbox 360s'- to the point that about 55,000 complained (how many didn't?). If there was an army of idiots out there juggling players while the disk was spinning, you would expect similar large numbers of Wii, PS2 and PS3 owners to have problems. They don't. Wii owners have other problems such as flying remotes, but no class-action law suits on scratched disks. On the other hand MS had to put aside $1 billion for Xbox warranty repairs - mostly RRoD, but also scratching.
2) MS claim it only happen when people tilt the player; but plenty of evidence including a repair shop that conducted a test on a batch of machines, say that it happens without tilting the player.
3) MS keep swapping the DVD player used in the 360; as with most consoles they are trying hard to keep the cost per unit down, but experts have pointed out that they are missing some components like a clamp or bumpers that would make the drives more robust. I doubt lawyers jump into class-action lawsuits with MS's army of evil lawyers without having a modicum of evidence.
4) When you scratch a game disk (which spins for hours on end during logn games) you potentially lose an expensive game. Not like burning a disk & finding you have a coaster. Not just a slightly scratched disk either; people are talking about the optical reader mech, grinding a channel into the disk killing them.
5) Advice to keep the 360 horizontal, level & stable, may not work anyway, and ignores the expected operating environment - MS publicity shots pretty much always show it vertically. Often they operating with kids jumping around (watch somebody playing Guitar Hero), sub-woofers pumping, maybe sitting on the carpet in front of or beside the TV. Not totally unexpected that the 360 might vibrate or move a little. Most devices work fine; including my old PS2 with the kids yanking on controller cords and jumping around the floor with eyetoy. My laptop even works fine while moving & tilting the player; I just tried it, though it was only about the 2nd or 3rd time I ever used the optical drive in the HP.
So why the legion of people blaming the user? Think about it; there is more to it than just the odd failure due to idiots
This occurs even if you just BUMP IT/PICK IT UP WHEN A DISC IS LOADED AND NOT BEING ACCESSED.
Believe it or not, a lot of people actually have their xbox's on coffee tables/floors/etc while using them, even a SLIGHT BUMP on a coffee table causes the drive to lose gyroscopic integrity and eat the disc.
What the hell is with all you "Duh, just don't tilt it?" types. I mean seriously this drive ***IS*** defective. As Adrian Jackson says, ever heard of a CD Walkman? (Well I'm guessing "no", but...) this thing would go in a pocket or bag *while you are jogging*, and read CDs... without scratching them!
This lawsuit seems to be covering the early units that did not have warning stickers, etc. (Note a warning sticker is a pretty lame fix for a design defect.) For all of you saying "well you wouldn't put a DVD player on it's side" 1) DVD-ROMs *do* work just great on their side. HP for one seems to LOVE mounting drives that way. 2) DVD players aren't shown in ads sitting on the side and the case isn't really shaped welll for it, unlike XBoxes.
The trouble is that you don't even have to "shake it around" - even just tilting the console (say for example your wife decides to dust and just tilts it a bit to dust underneath) was causing the problem. It is basically an issue with the drive not securing the discs well enough. I agree - if you decided to play a game of football with your 360 while playing a game though, you could expect it to cause problems.
"It’s worth noting that Microsoft has already issued several ‘fixes’, including a disc replacement programme for gamers and a warning sticker placed on new Xbox 360s that tilting the console with a disc inside could result in disc damage"
I loved this line from the article, or at least what they consider a fix. As opposed to actually resolving the problem by fixing the issues with the drive itself, they stick a label on it to say that any sort of movement may cause scratched discs.
To all the people defending it, saying you shouldn't move any device when it's on, I call complete bullshit on that statement. I've owned laptops with DVD drives for years that you can safely move around (or even accidentally knock a bit) while the drive is in motion without scratching crap out of your DVD's. None of the other consoles have ever suffered this problem to my knowledge - so that only leaves it being down to either shit design or production (or both).
I've had my Xbox 360 for almost 3 years, it's been scratching my game discs since the day I got it and not once have I moved it whilst a disc has been spinning in it. I complained to Microsoft and got their standard 'Moving it will scratch discs' response... their tech support person refused to comment on me explaining that I had an original Xbox sat next to my Xbox 360 and it has *never* scratched a disc, bottom-line - Microsoft refused to do anything about it.
I have to say though that not all my game discs get scratched as it has a lot to do with the type of game, for instance games that required lots of preloading such as Oblivion or Bioshock means that the disc spins more frequently increasing the probability of a disc getting scratched.
All I do now is resurface a disc when I get a 'disc unreadable' error and when the extended warranty runs out I shall take it apart, remove the drive and either fix it by placing some foam pads on the underside of the drive bay (which will prevent the disc from 'tilting' towards the laser assembly) or replace it with one that has been properly treated (as the ones in the early XBox 360's should have been).
"But come on, blatant stupidity is blatant stupidity. Unless the units have laptop style drives with a press clip spindle, tilting any of them while the disk is spinning is asking for trouble."
And yes, it is. So why are you assuming there's no stupidity on MS's part here?
Desktop CD units can be used vertically. They aren't laptop drives. They work. PS2 doesn't use laptop units. Nor the PS3. They don't mind being moved in the slightest.
My PS2 is the only device I've had scratch a disc - my cat knocked it over when it was in a vertical position, and sure enough, big scratches ensued. So that can do it as well.
Ever since, I keep all my consoles horizontal. Particularly that PS2, though that's more to do with it now having a hard drive in it, which leaves the machine quite absurdly top-heavy.
My 360 has scratched disks consistently, despite remaining perfectly immobile and horizontal in the bottom of my TV cabinet. It has done this despite being replaced twice - the jury is still out on the current replacement.. not sure if it still has the same Samsung drive in it.
Not all CDs/DVDs are perfectly balanced or have spindle holes that are completely concentric. You can usually identify these disks as they can be considerable noisier during access due to the increased vibration.
Saying that this only happens when the unit is moved or even jogged is bollox!
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