Although the initial outrage at the Xbox 360 disc-scratching problem has died down somewhat, BBC is bringing the issue back to the attention of the public with a feature in their consumer awareness program, Watchdog.

The general tone of the feature accuses Microsoft of not taking care of its customers or its own product. They did their own investigation of the issue by subjecting the console to numerous levels of vibrations.

They found that older versions of the Xbox 360 were so sensitive that the "shock vibration" of "placing a heavy book down" is enough to scratch the disc. You can imagine how games physical games like Guitar Hero will quickly become problematic. However, they do note that newer versions of the 360 "passed with flying colours."

When they contacted Microsoft for comment, they found that the company was "unwilling to admit there's any such problem." Says Microsoft:

Microsoft reaffirms its longstanding position that it's not been able to ascertain any defect in the Xbox 360 console that causes concentric gouges (that is, 'scratching') on discs when a console is in a stationary position.

Indeed, despite extensive testing and examination under static operating conditions, Microsoft has never been able to reproduce the concentric gouge that causes disc readability problems or find any such defect in consoles returned by consumers for examination. It's only with the movement of a console that such 'disc scratching' may occur.

[...] A very small fraction of our customers have contacted us about disc scratching. For those customers, Microsoft offers online support tools and call-in centre support.

Uhuh. Heard that before.

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