Xbox One disc drive error 'sounds like a robot is vomiting'

Microsoft's brand-new Xbox One console is suffering from teething problems, with a disc drive fault that "sounds like a robot is vomiting", according to one report on Amazon.com.

Buyers of the media-friendly new games machine, which went on sale in the UK and other countries today, have taken to Amazon reviews, YouTube, games forums and social media to bemoan their broken Blu-ray 'boxes.

Amazon in particular has attracted wags keen to outdo each other on the most colourful description of their allegedly borked consoles. "Great, just GREAT! I spent over $700 on this machine including games and it doesn't work! Disc error, it sounds like a robot is vomiting when I try to put a disk in," writes JM.

"Came home and turned on console… everything fine. Inserted disc and it sounded like its chewing it up. Won't start. Great," moans Stylez. "I put the game in the console and I get a horrible grinding sound and the game will not load," writes Abu Ahmed, while S. Nasar says, "I wish these companies would actually spend some time making sure the damn console WORKS before taking our money."

As user r soria wisely warns, however, there's no way of knowing if any of these reports are true. "None of these one star reviews are true, none are from verified buyers. I bought my console, played it all night, it was amazing."

Here's Bernhard Schuller on YouTube, however, showing what a broken Xbox One sounds like.

As comedian and outspoken games fan Rab Florence puts it, the rapid-fire clicking is "like my old Commodore 1541 disk drive". More YouTube reports were collected by sflufan on the NeoGaf forum.

There's currently no way of knowing how widespread these problems are. None of the Xbox One units reviewed by CNET or its sister site GameSpot have had any problems. I've contacted Microsoft for comment and will update this story when I hear back.

The Xbone isn't alone in the next gen with reported errors, with the PS4 struggling with what wags have named the 'Blue Light of Death' -- a flashing blue power light indicating the game is up for Sony's new box. Sony reckons the error is caused by a wide range of problems, and is therefore unlikely to be any kind of manufacturing fault. It blames damage done during shipment and maintains the PS4's error rate is less than 1 per cent.

Have you picked up a duff Xbox One today? What does it sound like? Use your most verbose descriptions -- family-friendly ones, mind -- down in the comments, or over on our zero-fail Facebook page.