Halo 3: ODST disc error "not widespread"

By Robert Purchese Published 28 September, 2009

"Very small number", says Microsoft.

Microsoft has issued a statement downplaying Halo 3: ODST "Unreadable Disc" reports that popped up last week.

"We are aware of a very small number of people who are reporting they can't play the game," the platform holder told Eurogamer.

"We are looking into it, but at this point it doesn't appear to be a widespread issue."

A 35-page thread reporting the issue on the Bungie forums has now spread to over 57 pages, with members still frustrated at the lack of communication from either developer or publisher.

The disc-read error occurs on some Xbox 360s during the Halo 3: ODST's campaign, rendering the game unplayable from thereon out. Other games including Halo 3 are reportedly affected as collateral, and there are even mentions of the machine itself taking a nosedive following the error.

Bungie is busy gathering data from those affected, presumably pin-pointing the problem and establishing a way to fix it.

It's a shame, because Halo 3: ODST is a solid and enjoyable squad-shooter from Bungie, and the game raced to the top of the UK charts today.

Our Halo 3: ODST review paints a full and detailed picture.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (31) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • telboy007 #1 2 years ago

    Peeps on me friends list seem to be playing it ok, maybe it needs the lost odyssey disc 3 (or 4) treatment of putting it in hot water off the boil. :D Ah great times, great times...
    Edited by 2 at 28/09/09 @ 15:43

  • matrim83 #2 2 years ago

    /Cue 50 people who havent even bought the game complaining about it.

  • Dizzy #3 2 years ago

    Nobody on my list has had any probs.

  • penhalion #4 2 years ago

    @matrim83

    Why do some people always try to dismiss problems simply because they themselves haven't had them?

    sheesh!

  • Rpt81 #5 2 years ago

    Never had any problems with the disc reading.

    Losing around 75% progress through the penultimate mission because I was too silly to release that "Checkpoint Done" =/= auto-save, that's a whole other matter...

  • Erebu #6 2 years ago

    Easy fix: clean the lens!

  • agparrot #7 2 years ago

    How odd, one of my Live compatriots actually can play the ODST disc fine, but gets the DRE on the H3 MP disc.

  • BlueDot #8 2 years ago

    Smell like new DRM/disc protection scheme gone wrong.

  • shotgun44 #9 2 years ago

    Also cue a bunch of people boycotting the game until the problem has been solved for ALL the problematic discs as it's unacceptable, Microsoft, paranoia, blah, blah, blah...

  • Beek4257 #10 2 years ago

    @Svspamm1
    I dunno, because of the games maybe.
    Edited by 1 at 28/09/09 @ 15:41

  • RexRunti #11 2 years ago

    Disc read errors sounds like a scratched disc to me. Have people tried getting a replacement from the store or installing to hard drive?

  • siro #12 2 years ago

    It's not happening to your friends because it only happens to a "very small number". What's hard to understand about that?

  • Ace_McCloud #13 2 years ago

    Svpamm1, why do you hate the Xbox 360 so much?

  • b00n #14 2 years ago

    It happens almost with every big game coming out, on any console, no? Just because a lot of people get their dusty consoles out again at that time, because a lot more people are playing it than 'normal' games, or the consoles get played on longer etc, so whatever happens during that period just gets linked to that game without the game itself being the cause per se.

    Not sure about it of course, but could be part of this kind of 'this game crashes this console'.

  • onyxbox #15 2 years ago

    I always though "Disk Read Error" was just just cheap way of the console saying "The game chrashed"

    They could never report the latter tho' ... imagine the problems with retail that would cause... much easier to blame the disk and have the poor sod take it back to shop and swap it for another one, which of course is exactly the same (i.e. nothing wrong with the media itself).

    :-)

  • mcmonkeyplc #16 2 years ago

    Wow only 1 troll so far. Things are looking up!

    I haven't tried the H3 MP disc yet, but no problems with the ODST disc yet...

  • kangarootoo #17 2 years ago

    @onyxbox

    Why would MS want to mislead gamers when somebody else's software crashes? If the game crashes (and the system is still able to report anything) MS have no motive to make the 360 report anything other than the truth.

    If the system reports it is unable to read the disc, that will be the problem that the 360 has diagnosed. Its diagnosis may be incorrect of course, but its not been programmed to "knowingly" give false information.

  • onyxbox #18 2 years ago

    @kangarootoo

    I guess I've come to this conclusion from when I used to play Oblivion a lot. The game used to freeze up quite a lot and crash with Disk Read Errors everytime I opened a particular door.. but if I opened a different save and went to the same door I wouldn't get a DRE... open the origional Save again and open the door and I would get a DRE.

    This to me looked more like a software crash and not much to do with the physical media itself.

    Perhaps it's the developer that determines the message... perhaps the game code traps the last error and reports DRE?

    I don't know, this is all speculation really but I after years of gaming (on XBOX1 and 360) I still think that if a game crashes the XBox OS catches this exception and just reports it as a DRE.

    Like I said, it's just a hunch based on my own limited experience.

    Perhaps there are 360 developers in this thread that can shed some light on it?

  • TheWretched #19 2 years ago

    The RROD wasn't "widespread" according to MS either... but they still went and took 1 billion USD in a loan to cover the costs.

  • uglygamer #20 2 years ago

    Halo: Is it me youre looking for

  • Shafto #21 2 years ago

    Mine's chanked - displaying exactly the errors detailed in the report.

    Halo 3 was doing it before ODST came out though - it's not a byproduct of ODST fucking the system up. The system is fucked to begin with, ODST just happens to highlight the symptoms more than most.

    Halo 3, Lego Indiana Jones, and even the XBLA version of Battlefield 1943 gave me the same errors.

    MS refuse to accept there's a problem, and insist I pay their absurd fixer fees, because my system has not RROD.

    One day a decent games journalist will actually expose the shoddiness of the whole setup. Until then, EG and many others will continue to take cheap hits from others problems, while doing absolutely nothing to help.

  • miiiguel #22 2 years ago

    ^ Don't understand how XBLA games can have "disc errors". "Unreadable disc" over an Arcade Game?
    Edited by 1 at 28/09/09 @ 19:08

  • Gammerz #23 2 years ago

    "Very small number", says Microsoft. Like the small number of problematic xbox 360's? Yeah, we really trust anything MS says.

  • danielknott #24 2 years ago

    I'm not dismissing this as not a problem, but it's obviously not very widespread at all. I work at Best Buy and out of all 258 copies we've sold so far, not a single has been brought in as defective, etc. I myself even have two 360s: an Elite produced in May 2007 and a Pro produced in August of 2008. Neither systems are Jaspers obviously so it's not like they are new consoles by any means, and from the Bungie forum people who are appearing to have problems are those that have systems manufactured between 2007 and 2008. My guess is that the lenses are either dirty, scratched, etc. or the systems have been modded (as flashing the DVD drive does make small adjustments to how the drive reads any disc, especially Wave 3 games).

    Gamertag: Knottian
    PSN ID: danielknott

  • Shafto #25 2 years ago

    @miiiguel

    I was as equally baffled at the time!

    There's a few people complaining about BF1943 disc read errors if you do a google search. This was at the same time as LEGO Indy gave me trouble (I've never found anyone complaining about this), and it's all been downhill since then. Halo 3 became unplayable, lots of other games started freezing, games installed to HD crash/DRE immediately.

    And all the while, L4D chugs on like an unbreakable champ. It's completely unaffected.

  • danielknott #26 2 years ago

    Also, I hate this constant stigma against MS. As an owner of all the major consoles since the SNES/Genesis era, I have been around to see companies deal with similar hardware/software/business problems. It seems so easy for the fanboys to forget the DRE problems of the PS2 for the first three years, or PS3's grown YLOD and firmware bricking problems, or the original DS Lite series hinge-cracking issue, just to name a few. Sure MS took over two years to eradicate the problem but unlike those other companies, MS actually took a proactive step by increasing the warranty period. My point is, there really hasn't been any generation in the last ten years where there hasn't been a truly widespread system problem. It's the price you pay to adopt early when the consoles are really on the bleeding edge at the time.

  • miiiguel #27 2 years ago

    @ shafto, indeed, very weird. I only had 2 problems, one with Lost Odyssey disc 4, though it is fairly common I think (store gave me a new one), and the other was with Halo 3, but in this case it was clearly a disc defect, as I could see the noticeable circular marks arround the brand new disc. I have 107 games, btw. Then again, not saying your "bsing", and if I was in your situation I woudn't be happy, I guess.

    edit: Like I wasn't when my "day one" PSP came with 4 dead pixels and Sony refused to replace it because that number was in the some sort of EU legislation which states LCD's can have a certain numbers of those shiny bastards!
    Edited by 3 at 28/09/09 @ 19:31

  • smelly #28 2 years ago

    I wasnt going to get involved here.. but then i read:

    >PS2 failure rate was terrible. Easily as bad as RROD.

    And all I know is that my ps2 is still going, and i'm on my 10th 360.

    The 360 is a good console, but you'd have to be a bit blinkered to not see that it's not particularly well built...

  • jbjones16 #29 2 years ago

    I have this proble. 1st night i bought the new game, opened it, put in in my 360, got half way through 1st level and after a loading screen pop up pops up and says "Disc Error" "this disc is unreadable, clean it" so i take it out and not a scratch on it. I tried it as many times as i could, but everytime it would pop up. So far I am not Impressed with this game and it is very frustrating.

  • Xynyx2001 #30 2 years ago

    Crap. I DO have the problem. It happens when I try to play it from the hard drive... so far.

  • Rickers #31 2 years ago

    I'm soo annoyed that ive read this because i brought a new hard drive today thinking it was that, that was causing the game to crash, i dunno if its the game though beacuse on my mates hard drive it works but on my old one an my new one it crashes. the weird thing is that it crashes in the smae point on my new one and my old one :(. Everyone on my friends list that has this game can play it fine, blahhh i hate MS now there really annoying me and i refuse to pay their stupily high console fix prices when they blatently fail at making a working console :@