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Forums - Gaming - Disc Rot, are your games still working?

Corey on 08 May 2013

But what about modern systems such as PS2/Xbox and PS3/360?

Surely they wouldn't suffer from the same issues so quickly, if at all?



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Ostro on 08 May 2013

I'd say BluRay could be in danger of being worse because it's more sensitive.
Just get out cartridges again and adapt flash memory stuff. They may break as well sometime but less copies for sure.



ChadOkada on 08 May 2013
BaldrSkies said:
Thankfully I don't live on the Sun and my old discs still work.

Neither do I, but my luck was bad in this case.  It's strictly a matter of the pressing of the discs.  If air bubbles or contaminants get into the plastic as it is formed this will happen at some point.   My Dreamcast games are barely 14yrs old but flaws in the making of the discs have ruined some of them others are just fine.



ChadOkada on 08 May 2013
Corey said:
But what about modern systems such as PS2/Xbox and PS3/360?

Surely they wouldn't suffer from the same issues so quickly, if at all?

If air bubbles or contaminants got into the disc while pressings were done then those are at risk as well.



echoesfromthepast on 08 May 2013

Just last week my SNES copy of A Link to the Past lost all its saves (it was a sad day) but that's not a disk



     
Games can and should tell stories and share ideas through their mechanics. This is the intrinsic element of the medium and this is how experiences should be crafted in video games. No company does this as well as Nintendo and their echoes from the past.
  Aurum Ring  Delano7  Ocarinahero032

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ChadOkada on 08 May 2013
Ostro said:
I'd say BluRay could be in danger of being worse because it's more sensitive.
Just get out cartridges again and adapt flash memory stuff. They may break as well sometime but less copies for sure.

Apparently they are not safe either.  Read this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_rot

I feel like chicken little calling for the sky to fall but this stuff is real.  Some of my GBA games no longer work either. 

Every game I own is in mint condition.  I don't live in a strange climate, and my house is clean.



Fayceless on 08 May 2013

I tried to play Pokemon Blue the other day, it froze up after a few minutes every time.

I had that game in my gameboy more than any other. Probably wore out from all the road trips and blowing-to-start and going in and out all the time.



ChadOkada on 08 May 2013
echoesfromthepast said:
Just last week my SNES copy of A Link to the Past lost all its saves (it was a sad day) but that's not a disk


I feel you my friend.  My GBA Mario Kart super circuit is locking up when I play it.  I dread trying out Phantasy Star II on my Genesis.  It took me years to beat that game.



ChadOkada on 08 May 2013
Fayceless said:
I tried to play Pokemon Blue the other day, it froze up after a few minutes every time.

I had that game in my gameboy more than any other. Probably wore out from all the road trips and blowing-to-start and going in and out all the time.

Look up Bit Rot in the link I gave on this page. It may explain your situation.



ChadOkada on 08 May 2013
Cobretti2 said:

Well this is what happens when people praise Sega/Sony for advancing gaming my further developing disc media. We should have further developed game cartridges with new tech instead.

Sega/Sony alone are not to blame as the movie industry has done the same. Some of my old dvd movies suffer from this. Then on the other side of the coin I got video tapes from the 60s that have MINT picture.



Or at least HOPE BluRay media is more resilient.

 

One solution would be that at the end of the gen, the companies should open up the hardware so you can backup your games to digital and discs lol.

I wish that were so my friend.  Some of my game cartridges are failing me as well.  I gave a link on page 4 that might explain it though

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_rot