The European Commission for Consumers has given Microsoft until the end of this week to explain a disc scratching issue raised by Dutch TV show Kassa. Reports of the alleged defect have been around since the release of the Xbox 360, but this is the first formal action asking for a response from Microsoft.

Dutch consumer orientated TV show Kassa brought the issue into the limelight, with the ECC asking Microsoft to provide an explanation.

Over at www.hardware.info in March, a test to try to nail down if the Xbox 360 was prone to disc scratching found that moving the Xbox 360 during gameplay did indeed cause the scratching the can lead to a useless disc. This practice is addressed in the Xbox 360 manual as a way of having your warrantee voided.

In addition, the test found that a vertically deployed Xbox 360 could be more prone to movement and thus the disc scratching problem. Similar disc drives have compensating buffers deployed around the laser lens, which has been identified as the source of the scratching; the Xbox 360 doesn’t have these buffers installed.

Microsoft has denied that the scratching is a prevalent part of the Xbox 360 design.

Source: iTWire