"13 year old Dutch boy sues Microsoft"

[Hapimeses]

I can't see this sort of story helping Microsoft at all, especially when the video makes a clear case for why the scratching happens, and that it could have been easily avoided with an extremely cheap ring of ribber around the lens, something that other drives by the same manufacturer of the DVD drive have.

Does anyone know if later 360s have newer DVD drives, and if they are safer? If not, this issue will plague MS to the end of their current console's lifetime, and that's not ideal for a console that has already been afflicted with severe reliability issues. Personally, as a fan of consoles, I still have no desire to take the risk of buying a 360. I almost did last year, but went with the PS3 because of the reported reliability issues, and I've neither seen nor heard of any substantive reason why this wasn't a good choice. A year later, several of my 360 friends have suffered from reliability issues; none of my PS3 friends have. Further, some of my 360 friends are out of pocket because of damaged DVDs (I had no idea why until now; I'm a bit behind the news).

Really, how can Microsoft justify this to their customers? If not for the reliability, they really would have a kick-ass console -- they've kinda shot themselves in the foot here, demonstrating that their strength really is software, not hardware.

I know I won't buy a launch Microsoft machine in the next generation. My trust has been torn to shreds, and it hasn't even affected me personally. However, I would buy a launch Nintendo or Sony machine if the price was right and the machine attractive to my gaming needs, as both of those manufacturers have a solid reputation by comparison.

If I were Microsoft, I'd be trying to resolve this issue as fast as possible in the newer machines; but, it may be a little too late. After all, I've lost my hype for buying the machine, and I'm sure there are many others like me.