Gaming

Some Xbox Series X buyers are already reporting hardware issues

The inevitable onslaught of out-of-box issues accompanying new consoles has begun, this time with disk drive problems.

After months of waiting, the much-anticipated event has finally arrived: Next-Gen Console Malfunction Week! It's a tale as old as time: eager gamers invest a ton of their time, energy, and money into being the first to get their mitts on new hardware like the Xbox Series X, only to soon find out that their multi-hundred dollar investment isn't all it's cracked up to be (at least, not initially). It's been only a day since Microsoft's new gaming powerhouse hit the market, and like clockwork, the first reports of problems are already coming in via social media.

In this case, it appears some of the new Xboxes sound real sketchy when running physical gaming discs, and sometimes are even refusing to load them entirely.

Machine gun and metronome sounds — One of the chief initial complaints seems to be a whirring and/or clicking noise coming from the Series X while it runs physical game discs, which can sound like a "mechanic machine gun or a metronome" according to one user on Twitter. These reports don't seem to indicate any problems with the gameplay itself, but ominous mechanical noises certainly don't make the experience any more enjoyable.

Of course, this only happens if your Series X actually manages to accept whatever disc you're trying to load. Others are also claiming that their consoles flat-out won't accept games into the drive at all.

Unclear how many are affected — It's unclear at the moment just how widespread these problems are within the first wave of shipped consoles, but it's probably safe to say Microsoft is well aware of the issue by now. In the meantime, we don't recommend physically shoving reluctant discs into the Series X, as some Redditors have purportedly done. If you just so happen to already have one of these gaming behemoths sitting on your shelf, it might make the most sense to stick to downloading your gaming titles until this whole thing gets worked out. Even then, however, your results might vary.

We don't know about you all, but we eagerly await whatever wonderful surprises the PlayStation 5 has in store for its fans in the coming days, following its own launch day tomorrow. At least it won't be (quite) as massive as its original designs appeared.