I just got a new game about 3 days ago. On the first day I started playing it on my 360, I was already starting to get disc reading errors. I now get them quite frequently when I play that game (1+ times an hour). I've had disc read errors in the past but not this frequent or on a game that didn't have any scratches at all. Is it most likely a problem with my console?

It depends, how old is your 360? I have a "first run" 360 so it's one of the older models.

I'm having the same problem with my 360 and Skate 2 (not sure if it's a hardware or software issue).

I recently upgraded my 360 to use the new interface, I think that might be part of it.

Last week my 360 started having lotsa disc read errors and eventually gave me a E71 message.
I unplugged it and took off the harddrive, then I plugged it back together and played without the harddrive on, which worked just fine. Then I attached the harddrive and everything was hunky dory again. You might give that a try.

"It depends, how old is your 360? I have a "first run" 360 so it's one of the older models.

I'm having the same problem with my 360 and Skate 2 (not sure if it's a hardware or software issue).

I recently upgraded my 360 to use the new interface, I think that might be part of it."

"I'm having the same problem with my 360 and Skate 2 (not sure if it's a hardware or software issue).."

"Bullet_Jr said:

"I'm having the same problem with my 360 and Skate 2 (not sure if it's a hardware or software issue).."

Dude, my problems started when I began playing Skate 2 as well. A buddy of mine's 360 has also been kinda wonky after starting on Skate 2.
My common sense is tingling, there may be a pattern here."

BTW, the game I referred to in my original post is Gears 2.

You might also want to consider clearing your 360's disk cache. You can read more about it here: http://vgstrategies.about.com/od/xbox360faqs/a/ClearX360Cache.htm

My Lost Odyssey Disc 2 had DRE's until it met some car polish and toothpaste! :D

There is hidden secret (I don't know if this is as secret as I believe, but what the hey!) but true answer to this. I found out about this while I was recieving the notorious disc read error that shows up, for some, half way through 'Star Wars: The Force unleashed' after turning it off and then back on a few hour's later

Solution that worked for me was this:

When you're in your XBOX 360 dashboard go to system settings, go into your memory section, press (A) on your desired hard drive (it's easy, there should only be one, lol.) and now press (Y).
DON'T press format OR rename.
Simply press: (X), (X), (LB), (RB), (X), (X).
This will start a hard-drive maintenance process and should hopefully stop your 'disc read error message' from messing up your gaming hour's. Make sure you print/write this down. I do this every friday morning before I go to work and haven't recieved the message since.
(I think it's like a defrag for the PC.)
Also, even if this process dosn't seem relevant try it anyway.

Edit********** I just followed the link from the guy above me (Thanks goes to AnimZero) his link says basicly what I just typed. I personally didn't know that it cleared your xbox 360 cache, well you learn something new every day.
To those gamer's who aren't technically minded, like me, this will mean that all xbox updates for whichever games you have will be removed. (just to reiterate: updates, NOT game add-ons like operation anchorage and the like.)