Less than a week after bungie announced Halo 2 Gold and released to manufacturing, a DVD copy has surfaced on the Internet.
The leak comes just under a month before the game will appear on shop shelves.
Microsoft are furious, and have issued a statement:
Microsoft has learned that a version of Halo 2 has been posted to various newsgroups and websites. We consider downloading this code or making it available for others to download as theft. We are currently investigating the source of this leak with the appropriate authorities. Pending the result of our investigation, we do not have further comment. Microsoft takes the integrity of it intellectual property extremely seriously, and we are aggressively pursuing the source of this illegal act. The launch of Halo 2 worldwide remains unaffected.
Bungie have also posted a message to their site calling for fans to help find the source of the leak:Last night a pirated copy of Halo 2 was released onto the internet. Needless to say we think this really sucks. Aside from years of hard work being stolen from us, we've gone to great lengths to ensure that the details of the Halo 2 campaign remain a mystery for players to experience for themselves on November 9th. Microsoft is currently engaged in a full scale investigation and to those foolish enough to partake in this piracy, you will soon witness the firepower of this fully operational battle station.
The appeal to fans may pay off; the arrests of the hackers who stole the Half-Life 2 source code was aided by fans of the game.This leak also mirrors the early leaking of DOOM 3 more than a week before its official release - that saw 100,000 copies being circulated within a very short time, but did not affect sales of the game to a large degree.
More info:
Halo 2 leaked onto the internet
Stolen 'Halo 2' hits pirate sites
Halo 2 leaked onto the net
Halo 2 leak shock - MS speaks
Discussion >>
