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Halo 3 game disc floats freely in game box  (Source: Hooterville of NeoGAF)

Some report of skipping music as a result of scratched discs  (Source: NeoGAF)

Shallow center hub not up to the task of securing Halo 3 discs  (Source: NeoGAF)
Shoddy Halo 3 packaging leads to scratched game discs

A lot of people will be buying shiny, new copies of Halo 3 this week, but some of them will get home to find scratched discs straight out of the box.
 
Early reports from lucky early owners of the Halo 3 Limited Edition on gaming forum NeoGAF found that the game discs have broken free from the hubs that were supposed to secure the discs into place.
 
Unlike the regular Xbox 360 green game boxes, the Halo 3 Limited Edition ships in a black tin box with center hubs too shallow to adequately hold the DVDs in place. As a result, consumers may find discs that have been freely floating around inside the box that have been scratched up by the very hub that was supposed to keep it in place.
 
“A friend just opened 3 copies of Halo 3 Limited Edition and with all three copies both disc were loose inside of the package and scratched to death,” explained the original poster of the thread. “This Limited Edition has a piss poor plastic nub and foam pad disc holding design that is a major flaw and the discs pop off with ease.”
 
Although Halo 3 has yet to launch to the public, forum participants who work at game stores have chimed in with their own experience after examining (by shaking and listening for loose discs) their inventory.
 
“I picked up 2 collectors tins today at work, and they both felt like the disc came loose in them. This is a horrible sign,” said one store employee.
 
The same conditions may also apply to the game in other territories. “I saw a few PAL copies yesterday … and they were all the same. Every LE had two loose discs in the box, both badly scratched. The one we tested seemed to play ok but they're getting sent back as faulty anyway. It's not like they could be sold in that condition,” reported another store worker from overseas.
 
So far, reports of scratched discs apply only to the $69.99 Limited Edition, but not to the $59.99 Standard Edition or the $129.99 Legendary Edition.


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Well damn...
By Locutus465 on 9/22/2007 7:59:00 PM , Rating: 1
Limited edition is the one I went for... Well, hopefully I'll get one that survived, as long as I can play the game I'm happy. Personally, I'll be getting to GameStop early on the night of the 24th, sounds like all limited edition pre-order holders should consider doing the same :P




RE: Well damn...
By crazyblackman on 9/22/07, Rating: -1
RE: Well damn...
By crazyblackman on 9/22/07, Rating: -1
RE: Well damn...
By afkrotch on 9/22/2007 9:18:29 PM , Rating: 1
Ya, no kidding. I'm pissed off that I've had to purchase 3 different Xbox 360s. After investing around $600 in games, it wouldn't have made sense not to go for another system.

I bought the Japanese Xbox 360, so I'm unclear as what I needed to do to even get warranty service. So I just modded the casing from the 1st one, and implanted it on the 2nd one. Which of course, voided the warranty. Then on my 3rd one, I implanted the modded casing to it. The first two broke within about 3 months. 3rd one is surviving so far.

When someone asks me for my opinion, I point them towards the PS3. Sure, it has less games, but it doesn't break.


RE: Well damn...
By crazyblackman on 9/22/07, Rating: -1
RE: Well damn...
By feraltoad on 9/22/07, Rating: -1
RE: Well damn...
By crazyblackman on 9/22/07, Rating: -1
RE: Well damn...
By ShapeGSX on 9/22/2007 11:50:48 PM , Rating: 5
They will replace the discs for free.


RE: Well damn...
By Samus on 9/23/07, Rating: 0
RE: Well damn...
By erikejw on 9/23/07, Rating: -1
RE: Well damn...
By chick0n on 9/23/07, Rating: -1
RE: Well damn...
By mikeyD95125 on 9/23/2007 6:48:04 PM , Rating: 1
I'd prefer they not cut corners and use shitty packaging in the first place. I'm sure all the people standing in line will want a disc that works so they can go home and play it.


RE: Well damn...
By SaySomeThingOrDIE on 9/24/07, Rating: -1
RE: Well damn...
By feraltoad on 9/24/2007 2:04:03 AM , Rating: 2
My friend sent back his RROD xbox. Got back one that was in worse shape (scratches on it and some kind of crap in the disk tray, spilled milk? Oh and the eject button was hit or miss). He as pissed because he had taken care of his and it only had light use; less than 80 hours on it. Also, this one scratched 2 of his games GOW and another he just bought. He called MS. They said, "No Replacement of Games", and their policy was "The xbox360 does NOT scratch discs". He said the tech was sympathetic and said he had heard it from hundreds of people about the scratched discs but the brass still said "no replacements". Fortunately, he was able to send the console back, but now it'll be another month.Just check google news about the scratching and u will see the headlines. If you guys know a special customer service number or technique to get those games replaced cough it up! It would be good to mail them off now since he has no way to play them anyway. Anyone personally had a game replaced? If so please chime in, I'd love to be wrong about this. He said he would use those Disc Skin things to protect his games from the console.


RE: Well damn...
By omnicronx on 9/23/2007 12:26:27 AM , Rating: 4
Hey sir, son, buddy, whatever you want to call yourself, whats the point of all your posts. Sure getting an RROD box sucks, so don't buy one. If 3 RROD's are not going to change someone's mind, your rambling and run on sentences sure as hell won't.

The 360 now has a larger fan base, plain and simple. I can't think of how many original ipod's my friends have gone through, but amazingly they still go back and apple has the market cornered. Even though there are many other cheaper and better mp3 players out there.

And lets face it, RROD is essentially a thing of the past, the newer 90nm boards have a fraction of the fail rate that older boards had, and with 65nm on the horizon, it should soon be a thing of the past. And by the way, don't buy a ps2 either, because i heard the first year of the red box batches are defective, thus all ps2's after that must also be defective.


RE: Well damn...
By crazyblackman on 9/23/07, Rating: -1
RE: Well damn...
By afkrotch on 9/23/2007 1:51:41 AM , Rating: 2
65nm is only the cpu. The GPU will still be 90nm and that's where the majority of RRODs is going to be at.


RE: Well damn...