New game reportedly being rejected by older Xbox 360s as unreadable; Microsoft "aware" of issue in "small" number of players.

Though the original Xbox 360 hardware is infamously error prone, today reports surfaced of problems with one of the company's software offerings. Unfortunately for Microsoft, it's the most popular game on the market at the moment--the first-party sci-fi shooter Halo: Reach.

 

Reports of Halo disc errors have already Reach-ed Microsoft! (Sound of crickets chirping.)

Most reports in an increasingly long thread on the Bungie.net forums have the consoles being unable to read the disc or telling players to eject the game and wipe the disc clean. Many posters complain the discs are brand new and spotless, meaning they could not be dirty or scratched. Other issues include looping cinematics and freezing on start-up.

According to the thread, the problem appears to be mainly isolated to 20GB Xbox 360 Pro consoles, which were sold from 2005 to 2008, when the Pro class was upgraded to a 60GB hard drive. However, some reports complain the 120GB Elite model is affected as well.

Today, Microsoft issued a statement acknowledging the matter: "We are aware of a very small number of customers reporting that their copy of Halo: Reach is causing a 'disc read' error. Those affected should contact Microsoft customer support at 1-800-4MY-XBOX for troubleshooting assistance."

The disc read error isn't the first problem being experienced by Halo: Reach. Earlier this week, Microsoft acknowledged Halo: Reach co-op mode issues were being experienced by owners of the $200 4GB Xbox 360 slim, which uses internal flash memory. That error asked players to insert a hard drive before playing, even though the console has enough internal memory for game saves.

The Halo: Reach problem marks the latest technical issue faced by console makers in general and Microsoft in particular. In 2007, the company announced it was setting aside over $1 billion to replace Xbox 360s suffering from the so-called "red ring of death issue" for free. Some reports on the Bungie forums said Microsoft was offering the same deal to Xbox owners unable to play Halo: Reach. As of press time, the software giant would only say that those suffering from the error(s) should contact Xbox customer support.

 

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6276276.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;4

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Don't know if this has already been posted.

works fine on my 60gb model

This has been popping up more and more. It might end up similar to the final fantasy 13 ps3 disc read error (I wonder if they won), where it might end up in court if it bricks the console.

Maybe it was a bad batch of DVD's I don't think it is a hardware issue. Even though the article say it is.

Actually I'm more inclined to say it is a hardware issue.  This is just the usual big seller that people associate their hardware failures with rather than a fault of the game.  It happens as you get people who haven't played much for a while suddenly ramping up the usage of their console when a game like Reach comes along.  A failing laser exhibits exactly these sort of faults before eventually going the "open tray" error route.

It doesn't matter how clean the disk is, if the laser is weak and/or not focusing properly then it will not read certain disks.  I've seen failing lasers read extremely scratched disks, yet fail to read new disks hundreds of times.

I actually have had this problem. Thought is was my xbox because it would happen to halo 3 (mine was scratched severly) but then I got reach and had the same problem. Took me a day and half to get it running without problems. I ran an optical disk drive clean disk quite a few times, and I also tried clearing the hard drive cahce, playing with out a hdd, and installing. the first time I installed the problem got worse, but after I installed after cleaning the drive it has had no problems. hope it stays that way the game is awesome.

I've never heard of that one before, got a link or something?

Your probably right hopefully M$ gets on it quick couldn't imagine how I would feel if it happen to me on such a big title.

This is exactly what was happening to my 360 a couple of months ago...its a really easy fix though, just have to rip your 360 open and turn a screw a few millimeters (i think its called the DVD pot) and now my 360 reads just perfectly.

Yea i wouldn't mind reading about that, sounds funny.