There have been reports of scratched Halo 3 discs reaching customers - apparently due to poor packaging.

After waiting a long time for the issue of Halo 3, it sounds like some people are going to be rather disappointed with their new purchase. Before the official release of Halo 3, there have been accounts of problems with scratching on discs of the limited edition of the game. It appears that this scratching is due to the poor packaging of the disc inside its tin case. The damage seems to have been caused in some cases due to the plastic that is supposed to hold the disc in place during shipping. This plastic is seemingly not strong enough to secure the CD's, allowing them to move around in the box and scrape against each other.

This problem applies to the Halo 3 Limited Edition that is distributed in a black tin case. This is not the same situation with the regular Xbox 360 that is packaged in a green game box. As of today, this situation affects the Limited Edition only and does not appear to apply to the Standard Edition or the Legendary Edition.

Such small scratches appear to allow the game to be loaded. First of all, this may cause problems in the future. In addition, once you have decided to pay out good money for such a product, you understandably would wish to receive top quality and your money's worth.

Due to the recent reports, it would be advisable to check out the disc quality at the time of purchase before leaving the store. It is also likely that many stores would not sell the packages in this condition. The word is that Microsoft have created so many of these discs that if there is a problem with some scratched discs, there will certainly be enough to ensure replacements.