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Anywho....
Before recording the Gamecast (CAA's offical video game podcast you should listen to: Click! ), I used to say that a fair amount of 360s died by user neglect and claimed my 360 has been fine since launch. I can no longer claim that. -even despite my best efforts to always knock on wood after each claim. Heh.
As the title suggests, the disc drive on my 360 is not working. Nope, no three red rings of death. X-box Live Arcade, Marketplace, and the like still work just fine. The disc drive just stopped spinning during a game of Splinter Cell today. An error message popped up saying the disc needed to be cleaned. I checked the disc... only to find one or two very minor scratches. -Below the usually wear and tear. Nevertheless, I cleaned it and popped it back in. That's were the real fun started....
The Xbox 360 drive made the usual start-up noises, but a few seconds later the disc didn't start spinning. It would start and stop. Then, gave me the clean disc error again. So, I tried Hitman. After a few odd sounding clicks, starts, and stops, the game booted up. However, when it got to the first load screen, it took nearly three times longer to load. After the atrocious load time, the disc began to rattle in the tray. So, out of concern of the game being scratched to death, I ejected it. When I checked the bottom of the disc, it wasn't damaged. I proceed to check a few more games and movies. The drive simply started and stopped, then the system said "unplayable" for everything.
Interestingly, I wasn't really angry... just disappointed and almost laughing a little, because I pre-ordering Bioshock and Blueshock earlier today. -after trading in my PSP (going to get the new model next year --and it trades for $60 US, btw), non the less.
So, why did it break? Your guess is as good as mine. DVD movies wearing out the motor, rented games gunking up the laser, cheap/rushed manufacturing, Sony/Nintendo night gremlins, or even maybe too much Forza 2 (just kidding there -- too much Forza is impossible)... who knows.
I did, however, check xbox.com and like forums to see if others were experiencing this same problem. I counted at least a dozen or so reports from the last few days. Could this issue snowball into another issue like PS2's "disc read error"? ....time will tell. -Does make my tinfoil hat wearing side wonder why Peter Moore left recently, though.
Anyways, I'll be calling Microsoft tomorrow morning. The lines are pretty busy right now and it's late. I'll post more details on this situation as it happens for interested current and possible X-box 360 owners out there.
Til' then, I'll be playing UNO in HD!
