The Xbox Disc Scandal!

First - Apparently there's some ways you can cause damage to Xbox 360 game discs while it's in your console. Back in 2005, Joystiq was annoyed about some problems with the Xbox 360 console. So annoyed they felt they should make a list, and the damage to the discs made that list in the number 8 spot.

Second - here's a report about a class action lawsuit due to damage to Xbox 360 game discs. Back in 2007, people were up in arms about the occasional damage to their video games.

Finally - Microsoft apparently knew about the the problem early on, and that means they are bad. Apparently they knew, and rather than spend millions to fix the problem, they chose to spend less on just adding information to the user manual that told customers not to do anything to move their console while in use, and then replace discs that were damaged in this manner.

Here's the problem, I've used electronics for many years. I've used optical disc drives in some capacity or another for most of those years. Without ever having read anything to lead me in this direction, I've always assumed that portable devices are meant to move around to some degree, while non-portable devices are not.

I understand that a majority of the problems seems to come from people shifting the orientation of their Xbox's while in use. To me, this seems like simple physics. Two thin layers of plastic sandwiching a thinner layer of pitted aluminum spinning at unnatural speeds should be left to its own.

I remember the sound it would make when I would jostle my old portable CD player, and the scratches that my discs would sustain during the process. I know the scratches that my CDs would sustain in the my car deck when I'd hit a particularly bad pothole or go over a speedbump a bit to quickly.

Why then, does this seem so unbelievable to people?

I understand being frustrated if the problem stems from someone running around too near to the console, but still, I can't say I'm remotely surprised. It seems like most of the people writing and talking about this are acting as though this is completely unacceptable, and you should be able to play hackey sack with the console while in operation and suffer no ill effects.

Statements like this are baffling:

"I regularly move my laptop while its hard disk and DVD drives are spinning, and no damage has occurred yet."

You can't compare the two, they're completely different animals. Besides the obvious differences in the design of the drive, I can't remember of time that I carried my laptop around while the drive was in motion that I wasn't careful throughout the process. Perhaps I'm alone in this, and most people burn DVD Movies while defragmenting their hard drives and using their laptops for a rousing game of four sqaure...

I've completely lost my train of thought.

Anyway, I've probably made my point. I don't really remember. I'm going to back to recovering from surgery.