I have an original Xbox360 model and my friend has the new model(the one packaged with the Kinect). When trying to play two games, blue dragon and fallout 3, the game works fine on his xbox, but on my original hardware, the xbox cannot read the discs properly. For both games, it loads the game and then either gets a disc unreadable error, or constant lag and glitches ensue. My xbox plays all other games fine, but struggles with these two. Neither of the games have a lot of scratching that would make it unplayable, because the new model can still read the games fine.
This question is more of a fundamental hardware question: Do they read games differently, or in the same way? I was thinking that maybe the slider tray and read optic are arranged a little differently in the new model, but I have never taken one apart.
Best Answer
There is no difference in console models. Although, they do use different disc drives in different batches. For example, a fat 360, can have a LG drive, while another fat 360 can have a Samsung drive.
You are having problems with scratched discs, because your drive is not able to read the data. Technically, it should be unplayable in such case. But, your friend is kinda lucky here, that his drive is able to read the games. There is nothing that can be done in this case, but to get the disc replaced. Also, if this happens to new games too, try getting console replaced. I had similar issue with BF3, got console replaced, and new one reads the game fine.