^ jesus is it Microsofts fault that a problem with a limited number of of Halo 3 disk's that were produced. It was reported that they had about 4 million Halo 3 disks produced for launch release and if a 100 or so people are complaining about problems I don't think its that bad.

Don't try to switch this as a reason or way to bash Microsoft. Problem with disk's happen with any and every consoles and games.

I thought people had come to accept that Xbox hardware was potentially defective or its software most likely unfinished at purchase. I mean you have a console with a 30%+ failure rate and how many games in its library that require patches of some sort. Of course people are going to write this off as a non-event, this kind of problem is already expected of 360 gaming unfortunately.

I'm sorry if this sounds trollish but I'm not going to be appologetic about a glaringly obvious fact or defend a company, ANY COMPANY, who releases a defective or unfinished product. If people are fine with this, that's fine, I'm sure they've come to expect this sort of thing from 360 gaming by now, no console is perfect after all and maybe Halo 3 is nothing more than the straw that broke the camel's back of many 360's that were already on the verge of the RROD or failure. Maybe the game's not at fault at all so much as the hardware is.

Either way, you can't expect everyone to be bothered by this news for reasons stated above, however, it's on the flip side of the argument also somewhat rude to try and write this off as a non event. I know people will be digging for negative news about Halo in response to its overwhelming success and headache inducing hype, but that doesn't discredit the validity of news items that will emerge on the matter.

It's a Microsoft software launch. I think they are probably doing a little better than average.

LOL, no. as i said, bad example. but I was talking about numbers vs. percentage.

I don't really care the failure rate on 360 since I don't own the console.

But if it becomes normal to patch after release on 360, then it spread to other consoles. That is going to become a problem.

 When I buy it, I expect it to work out of the box. 

I have been having some issues as well.
From my research and personal experience with Bioshock, and a friends 360, I believe the following may be happening:

Try to load Halo or whatever without the hard drive attached to the console.
If it works fine then this is your problem:

With these newer games the memory cache can become corrupted, and if you clear the permanent memory cache, as well as the temporary cache- things should work.
(all this will do is erase your software updates, not your game saves)
1) Access "memory" in the system blade of the 360 menus
2) Highlight the hard drive (dont select it, just highlight it)
3) Enter the following as if it is a cheat code: Y,X,X,LB,RB,X,X
4) It will say "would you like to perform system maintenance?" - Say Yes
The above will delete your cache
Now load 3 games other than the game you are having problems with, to wipe out your temporary cache, (load the game saves of each game)

This worked for me, if you couldn't get the code to work, just search for how to delete the cache on the 360

I just wanted to note one thing ...

When the Red Ring of Death was first being reported many people dismissed it as "only a couple of people" were having these problems and it "wasn't that bad" ... This ended up with Microsoft spending (roughly) $100 for every XBox 360 they sold to extend their waranty period to 3 years; which would imply that they intend on fixing a very larger percentage of these systems.

It is very difficult to determine how large or small a problem is based on initial reports from people on the internet. My initial reaction to this would be to call customer service at Microsoft and see if I could get a replacement disc (which they would probably agree to immediately) and only if they refused would I start complaining online.

Regardless ... for people who are overly impatient this is probably a big issue, for the rest of the world it is a small problem which will be (easily) be resolved for 99% of cases by this time 2 weeks from now.

My money is on a 360 issue, but either way until we get more information I don't see any reason to think of this as "rampant" or "widespread". I think it will die down and be resolved in a day or so and if it isn't then we know its a serious issue and we can address it then. Until then I don't see anything us debating or talking about the issue is really going to do.

For now if people just read the OP they get all the info they need, no need to try and blow it up and conversely no need to try to play damage control.

I knew Halo would kill plenty 360s but this very early.

I'm not sure how much you have followed the 360 but every game that is released supposedly RRoD's someone's Xbox. I remember when mine died people had me believing it was NCAA 06 07 that did it.

Aha! Thanks, we tried that and it fixed it.  Now I can finally play Halo 3!  yay!