A mandatory firmware update that expands the disc capacity capability of Xbox 360 game consoles isn’t compatible with some older consoles, but Microsoft is going to great lengths to make things right for those customers.
The new firmware upgrade, which the company began beta testing last month, allows the consoles to read an extra 1GB of space added to new Xbox 360 XGD3 game discs. But Microsoft has used a large number of different DVD drives in Xbox 360s over the years, and some customers with early models are going to see issues. The affected customers shouldn’t get too upset over the matter, however, as they will be getting a new Xbox 360 S with a 250GB HDD for their troubles.
"Following a recent update to our system software, we have become aware of an issue that is preventing a very small number of Xbox 360 owners from playing retail game discs," Microsoft said in a statement to Eurogamer Wednesday.
"This issue manifests itself a as a unique 'disc unreadable' or 'disc unsupported' error on the screen. We are also able to detect this issue over Xbox Live and are proactively reaching out to customers that may be impacted to replace their console."
Customers who begin experiencing the issue before being contacted by the company are urged to reach out through Xbox support channels.
Is it terrible that I’m actually wishing at this point that my Xbox 360 is one of the affected models? Maybe resisting the temptation to replace my 5-year-old console with one of the new Slims for so long will actually pay off.
