Scratched Discs Can Wreck a Rock Band

This isn't the only scratched-disc story I've heard concerning Xbox 360 games. Most recently, there was a problem with discs that were scratched when they came loose during shipping in a special metal box for a premium version of the game Halo 3. Microsoft offered to replace the damaged discs for free in that case.

This past summer, Microsoft announced that it was expanding the warranty on the Xbox 360 for an unrelated tech failure, a move that the company said would cost at least $1 billion.

At the time, Microsoft's corporate vice president of interactive entertainment, Peter Moore, posted an apology for the Xbox 360's technical problems on Microsoft's Web site.

"Good service and a good customer experience are areas of the business that we care deeply about," he wrote. "And frankly, we've not been doing a good enough job."

Two weeks later, Moore left Microsoft to take a job at Electronic Arts, Rock Band's publisher. He said that his move was not related the Xbox 360's tech issues.

For the record, the Xbox 360 I used, an "Elite," had never chomped on any other discs before last weekend -- but I know four folks who can attest that it left Rock Band unplayable on two relatively new Xboxes, and sorta buzz-killed the party.

According to tech blog Ars Technica, online-game rental service GameFly warned over a year ago that its customers should not move the Xbox 360 game console "in any way" with a disc inside -- or risk causing permanent damage.

I don't recall moving the system when the power was plugged on, though I also didn't know that doing so could destroy a game. In any case, my friends and I played for a couple of hours straight, without touching the system, before the game froze and we found the otherwise pristine disc had a circular scratch.

Did we rock too hard? Four people bouncing around and fake-rocking out in a living room cause a lot more vibration on the floor, where my game console is parked, than the usual couch-potato fare. Sounds like a stretch to me, though -- and if you can't bounce around while playing a game called Rock Band, what's the point?

In any case, the game is a blast and offers up an experience that could leave Guitar Hero in the dust. My friends and I barely scratched the surface, you could say. And my wife, who cares nothing for video games, now wants to set it up in a spare room of her office one afternoon for chuckles.

You're really making a significant lifestyle statement if you buy this game, as all the gear and wires involved tend to take over the room. Also, you need a big screen if you're going to play with your friends; that old 26-incher is not going to cut it if you want to crowd the band together in your living room. Fortunately, I had a gigantic screen and a high-definition projector on loan from Epson for the test run.

Hopefully, Buddha Cracka will have a reunion one of these days -- but I don't know how that'll work, as of this writing. I'm inclined to keep the replacement disc away from the bite-y Xbox. And next time, we're going to have to rock out a little more carefully.

Staff researcher Richard Drezen contributed to this report.