Break out those damaged discs, punish your PS3!

by Nick Doerr { Dec 13th 2006 at 1:30PM }

Let's open with a personal story. I loaned a game of mine to a good friend quite a few years back. It was Parasite Eve, which I really enjoyed for various reasons (it actually got me a good grade on a science test because I learned so much about mitochondria and such). And yeah, I know the image is from the second game... it's just a cool one. So, my buddy took it on a trip for some reason. He tossed the discs uncovered in a duffel bag and threw his chain necklace in there too. You can imagine what happened. Scratch city. Unplayable first disc. When I upgraded to my PS2, I got the disc to load, but I couldn't get past the first level without it freezing up (the sewers under the opera house, for anyone who played). Distraught, I've given up, but kept the game just in case I invest in a disc repair system. I might not have to. Onto the news.

An article over at Ars Technica has another personal story for you to read about scratched DVDs on the 360 and the PS3. The writer, Ben, talks about how a disc with a scratch or two seized up his 360, but played without flaw on the PS3. He repeated the process with other damaged goods, finding that whatever the 360 rejected, the PS3 accepted with a loving, warm embrace. Also of note is the quieter playback the PS3 achieves. Seems this is great news! Perhaps the tolerance will also increase damaged game playback? I've yet to try it out on my PS3 since it's still invisible, but if anyone's got a scratched game, whether it's PS3, PS2, or PS -- try it out and get back to us! Good stuff. Thanks for not giving us a cheap DVD-player thingy, Sony.

Tags: Playstation 3, Playstation3, PS3, Sony

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Eithan @ Dec 13th 2006 2:14PM

That may be true but then you have to deal with this once you get your game up and running:

http://www.ps3scene.com/news/static/PSonePS2GamesLookingWorseonPS3-1165990609.php

Strike Man @ Dec 13th 2006 2:32PM

It may handle scratched PS1 and PS2 games with relative ease, but I can't see the same being true for BD discs.

Regardless, it's very good to hear. I too have made the error of loaning out a game or two over the years, and not surprisingly, those are the only ones I have which are scratched...

Robert @ Dec 13th 2006 2:33PM

To Eithan:

If you check the thread at Playstation.com, you will notice only certain titles experience that issue when played on the PS3.

Link:
http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board/message?board.id=ps3&thread.id=808212&view=by_date_ascending&page=1

Eithan @ Dec 13th 2006 2:39PM

Thanks for the link, Robert. I hope they fix this soon.

mystikal @ Dec 13th 2006 8:24PM

i tried my god of war cd it was scratched up insanly by my nephew and it plays with ease when on my ps2 it would not even load..its crazy it actually works i also tried megaman x5 for the ps1 on the ps3 which is also scratched and it works with ease aswell so i confirm that this myth is conffirmed. :-) (u guys should know wea i got that last line frm if u watch mythbusters) awesome show!!

SuicideNinja @ Dec 13th 2006 3:52PM

"It may handle scratched PS1 and PS2 games with relative ease, but I can't see the same being true for BD discs."

Blu-ray discs have a scratch-resistant coating. Supposedly, they can resist steel wool, and still play. The coating is necessary since the data is so dense on the disc and close to the surface, any little surface scratch could cause huge problems.

Did Sony make up for their shoddy PS2 DVD lasers finally? It only took a hefty pile of faulty PS2's for them to figure it out.

I don't really have any scratched up games to try this with...whenever I get the PS3.

chillski @ Dec 13th 2006 6:35PM

it is defintely true, my ps3 carbon game got scratched to shit and it still works perfectly.

Also a dvd i gave up on wathcing because it was so scratched i tried last nite, and to my amazement it works !!!!

Colin @ Dec 13th 2006 4:52PM

Not really related to this post, but Wooo! New joystiq banner!

-Colin

brian @ Dec 13th 2006 5:43PM

The rest of the movies did as well. All the discs that the 360 choked on, the PS3 played without a problem.

Brad the Engineer @ Dec 13th 2006 6:35PM

The higher laser tolerances / error correction required for BD (including dual layer) result in much better operation for less stringent technology, i.e. cd's and dvd's. I always used my DVD ROM to rip audio cd's since it resulted in near zero bit errors, whereas my cdrom varied disc to disc. It is the same thing happening again with the change from Dvd to hddvd/bd.

So a scratch on an audio cd may throw off a normal cd player or dvd player, but the bd player will still play it due to better error correction, etc.

Too bad the 360 hddvd drive only plays movies as it should be better than a normal dvd drive at reading damaged media.

Vince @ Dec 13th 2006 6:37PM

Bannerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Thanks for that Colin, I wonder how long it would have been till I'd noticed.

Good to hear the PS3 can resurrect games from the dead.
I have a few levels, courses, tracks that drunken carelessness has barred me from for too long.

Aex @ Dec 13th 2006 7:24PM

This is delightfully interesting.

Strike Man @ Dec 14th 2006 12:33AM

"Blu-ray discs have a scratch-resistant coating. Supposedly, they can resist steel wool, and still play. The coating is necessary since the data is so dense on the disc and close to the surface, any little surface scratch could cause huge problems."

I've read that as well, and it makes me wonder if some of the previous BD renters through Netflix are rubbing their discs with diamonds.

For what it's worth, I haven't had a BD rental (out of, like...5?) skip on me yet, while 1 HDDVD rental (M:I-3, and pretty badly scratched) skipped in two places.