A lot of people will be buying shiny, new copies of Halo 3 this week, but some of them will get home to find scratched discs straight out of the box.

Early reports from lucky early owners of the Halo 3 Limited Edition on gaming forum NeoGAF found that the game discs have broken free from the hubs that were supposed to secure the discs into place.

Unlike the regular Xbox 360 green game boxes, the Halo 3 Limited Edition ships in a black tin box with center hubs too shallow to adequately hold the DVDs in place. As a result, consumers may find discs that have been freely floating around inside the box that have been scratched up by the very hub that was supposed to keep it in place.

Although Halo 3 has yet to launch to the public, forum participants who work at game stores have chimed in with their own experience after examining (by shaking and listening for loose discs) their inventory. So far, reports of scratched discs apply only to the $69.99 Limited Edition, but not to the $59.99 Standard Edition or the $129.99 Legendary Edition.