It turns out it would usually cost money to get your disc replaced: "The current fee is USD 20, GBP 10, or 15 Euro." "For the Halo 3 Limited Edition and Essentials discs, consumers will be able to receive a replacement at no charge through December 31, 2007."
Maybe the Legendary Edition does not contain scratched discs, as more reports come in are conflicting what I heard earlier. Even so I think we could see over 500,000 discs replaced by MS at no cost. I wonder how much money that would cost them. http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=28991
The first I heard was from people receiving review packs about a week before launch. You must remember though they claim to have over 4 million in the retail chain or already sold. That is a lot of discs to produce between going gold and launch day. They would of had very little time to rectify package issues on the early runs.
@Laoldar, Well the Legendary Edition contains the same faulty disc case as the LE, this is posted right in my article summary. Also on the internet I've seen the majority of people say their copies are scratched, and that Walmart story I directed you to shows that a guy opened 3 copies while he was there and every single one was scratched, and while he was doing this another person returned a scratched copy. I do not believe this is like the DS Lite hinge cracks, this sounds much more widespread. It could be only one batch of cases but I doubt that, as they were all probably based on the same faulty design and given how many people are reporting. They might not return it right away. I think a lot of people who shelled out $75-$140 for their favorite game for a deluxe copy of it are not going to want it scratched.
Where has it said that Legendary Discs were affected as well? I've only seen talk of the Limited Edition ones.
Now, what makes you think that all contain scratches? Because a few people complained? It's like the DS Lite hinge cracks...the ones who have it are the most vocal, but the vast majority that never experienced the problem aren't as vocal about it. So the problem seems much more widespread than it really is. Besides, the problem could be with a certain number of cases, but not all. When you're manufacturing that many cases, it's probable that they were not made at the same time/place with the same materials. It could be a glitch with only a few thousand cases.
Does it suck that the games are coming scratched? Yes, without a doubt. It's awful and I'm sure MS is sweating over it. Will most Halo players care as long as it works? Probably not. If you're the kind of person who runs out on opening night to buy a game, I doubt you're going to wait 2 weeks to play it because of cosmetic concerns.
@Laoldar, If they shipped 4.2 million, I think its safe to say that atleast 1.5 million were LE or Legendary. Could be as high as 2 million or possibly 2.5 million. Now factor in that it seems like almost all of the LE & Legendary contain scratches. Many people are going to return it to MS even if it is just cosmetic scratches, after they paid $75-$140 after tax. Check out this Walmart story, its a good read.
No way will it get that high. First off, we don't know how much of the original shipment is limited edition. Besides, if it's a cosmetic scratch that doesn't seem to impact play at all (which seems to be the case), I doubt that many people will be without their game for weeks just so that it looks nice and shiny.
Seems like extremely quick response (specifically mentioning this title on what was a generic form) from a company known for denying responsibility...perhaps they knew there was a problem already but went ahead with it as it was too late to pull stock. Now you have the biggest fans of the franchise waiting 2 weeks to play the game.
Why exactly are you shocked? This program is at least 2 years old...some of the games already covered are launch titles and even Halo 2 is on it. All they did was add Halo 3 to the list. In fact, it seems to cover all first-party 360 games.
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Maybe the Legendary Edition does not contain scratched discs, as more reports come in are conflicting what I heard earlier. Even so I think we could see over 500,000 discs replaced by MS at no cost. I wonder how much money that would cost them.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=28991