New Halo 3 disc errors?

Microsoft and Bungie are under fire from Xbox 360 owners experiencing disc-read errors from their new copies of Halo 3.

For some, that compounds existing problems with scratched discs in the Legendary Edition.

In both cases, Microsoft has already said that it will replace busted copies of the game, including Limited Edition versions, for free until the end of the year.

But that hasn't done much to quieten the discord on forums. A typical thread on Bungie's website now stretches to 30 pages, including anecdotal accounts of Microsoft support staff "confirming" that a bad batch of Halo discs exists and culminating in a 230-strong list of people claiming to be experiencing the disc-read problem.

Indeed, Eurogamer TV's own Johnny Minkley has had the same problem, although it's equally possible that he just put it in upside down or clogged it up with chest hair.

In other Halo-related developments, it's being reported that a bug which prevents players transferring Campaign mode progress between Xbox 360s is being tackled by Bungie at the moment.

The issue apparently occurs when you try to resume a Campaign having either moved the hard disk to another Xbox or used a memory unit to transfer it, resulting in an "unsafe to respawn" error that dumps you back to the main menu. Fortunately, you can still load any mission or insertion point to reclaim most of your progress, and a fix is expected soon.

And finally, tech boffins at Beyond3D reckon Halo 3 has joined a relatively poorly populated club of Xbox 360 games that run natively at 640p, rather than 720p, and then upscale.

It's well known that Bizarre Creations had to run PGR3 at 600p to achieve their desired frame-rate, so it wouldn't be completely surprising to discover that Bungie had been forced to do likewise to achieve their ambition.

Not that most will notice, of course. In fact, they would have got away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids.

For more meddling kids, check out our Halo 3 review!