victoramici: Some Xbox 360s won't read discs; Microsoft to comp owners with a new system, year of XBL (Update)

Wednesday, 18 May 2011

Some Xbox 360s won't read discs; Microsoft to comp owners with a new system, year of XBL (Update)

There may have been a good reason for that wide beta test Microsoft ran to test out its new disc format for the Xbox 360. While it will allow for an extra 1GB of storage space for new games and (it hopes) stop piracy, apparently some consoles contain drives that cannot read the new XGD3 discs. The details can be seen in the email pictured above posted by Reddit user Avery Penn and were verified as real by the Xbox Support Twitter account, but now it's responding to inquiries by saying the replacements are in response to a previous update and not the upcoming one that has been in beta. Adding to the confusion, Microsoft Europe confirmed the initial report and points affected users towards the support page to get sorted out. One way or another, affected owners can expect to be mollified by getting their Xbox 360s replaced with new 250GB Xbox 360S models plus a free year of XBL for the trouble. We haven't gotten an official response about the plan yet but are still checking, so your plan to hoard old consoles and get free replacements en masse is probably equal parts premature and Seinfeldian genius.

Update: Microsoft has responded, confirming that the earlier statement was incorrect and this is not related to the update being beta tested. If you're wondering how many people are in for a swap, all we could find out is that something less than 10,000 of the 50 million or so Xbox 360s sold worldwide are affected. Check after the break for the official word, but if you have one of the boxes and are connected to XBL you should expect to receive a notice in your email.

Continue reading Some Xbox 360s won't read discs; Microsoft to comp owners with a new system, year of XBL (Update)

Some Xbox 360s won't read discs; Microsoft to comp owners with a new system, year of XBL (Update) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 May 2011 11:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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