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Halo Reach Leaked To Filesharing Sites
Stoobalou writes "What appears to be the full version of Bungie's Halo Reach game has turned up on a number of file sharing sites. The hotly-anticipated multi-player shooter had been hosted on a private area of the Microsoft Live site in order for journalists to preview the release, but Microsoft has admitted that a security breach has meant that pirates have been able to bypass personal download codes given to writers. Disk images of the game are now appearing on a number of public torrent and P2P sites as well as on popular NZB aggregators and Usenet binaries newsgroups."
The game isn't due to be released until September 14th. Microsoft is said to be "aggressively pursuing" whoever grabbed the files without their permission.
Wow, that must be a record.
"What appears to be the full version of Bungie's Halo Reach game has turned up on a number of file sharing sites. The hotly-anticipated multi-player shooter had been hosted on a private area of the Microsoft Live site in order for journalists to preview the release, but Microsoft has admitted that a security breach has meant that pirates have been able to bypass personal download codes given to writers. Disk images of the game are now appearing on a number of public torrent and P2P sites as well as on popular NZB aggregators and Usenet binaries newsgroups."
Whew! I'm sure glad we lengthened copyright to prevent something like this.
They're stealing potential profit! It's almost as bad as competition between businesses, or a consumer informing other consumers about a bad company/poorly made product. In all three cases, potential profit is being stolen.
We must stop these people from hurting our businesses. Also, this clearly wouldn't have happened if there had been super powerful DRM installed with the game!
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Saw this posted a few days ago. Meh, it's not like it was going to get pirated after it was officially released like any other xbox game. So another xbox patch to go out and brick some more xbox consoles are in order?
I can redeem my Gamestop super exclusive unlocked shiny armor of orgasmic distraction early too?
I despise software that is deliberately broken. If publishers want to make some extra sales by rewarding preorders I'm fine with it, but after a few months the items should be available to everyone. I paid for the thing, I should not be prevented from using all of the features.
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
If you put the game in a machine without asking the owner, would he be in fault for putting it public or be your own? Even if he owns a lot of machines (i.e. thousands, after all, is his botnet, not yours), the faulty action was probably in Microsoft side.
Unless they cut power to all XBOX owners, I don't see how you can stop known leak on internet in 2010. Better spend money and resources elsewhere. Release it few weeks earlier?
Ergo, you gave it to journalists for publicity then got upset because it got publicity. Word of mouth from those "zero day" releases will get you more paying customers than the journalists will, especially when everybody's playing Starcraft II instead of reading game magazines and websites.
The version leaked is only useable for those with a specific kind of Xbox 360 mod, namely a JTAG mod. Basically, they aren't going to be playing on Xbox Live with this game or they'll kind their Xbox banned (and possibly Live account along with it). This is not a version that can be burned to a disc and played with a DVD-ROM modded 360, which is the most common mod and has a low detection rate.
Halo: Reach was actually leaked onto store shelves in the year 2001 for the original Xbox.
Halo: Reach is the short version of the longer title, Halo: Reach for another game.
Juilan Assange is so yesterday when you have Gamez for Windows.
Justice is done.
I don't think this will hurt MS much , a JTAG mod is out of hacker skill range of most Xbox gamers. http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-JTAG-your-Xbox-360-and-run-homebrew/
Microsoft had a security breach??? No way!!
If you play it in the next week, they can easily detect that and surmise you pirated it.
Can anyone explain why you need a JTAG mode to play this game? The only reason I have heard that makes sense is that a JTAG mode allows you to unban your console (by changing the ID) so you can play it on Live with impunity. Anyone who doesn't have a JTAG mod will get their console banned and won't be able to use it anymore.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Get it, breach instead of reach? Yes?
All the joy of 640p textures again and again :)
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
This always happens. Maybe not always ahead of the official release, but piracy is a reality. It hasn't killed any major games yet, and you're wasting your time, and more importantly money, worrying about it.
We are all God's parents.
This is why everyone releases games for the console these days. Everyone pirates PC games, but no one can pirate for the consoles...
Are you mad you failed to secure your permissions for downloaded files?
You only have yourself to blame. I only showed people how to bypass your bullshit, just like I showed the nice people at OZMODS how to bypass the PS3 protections.
Please, come after me. I'll fucking wipe out your life and livelihood when I expose your internal e-mails showing how you PLANNED this out. We're talking a SECOND anti-trust lawsuit with full exposure this time, assholes. FUCKING TEST ME.
I *LOVE* having spies in industry. Your NDA be damned. I'll expose you for the Totalitarian Communists that you are and make your stock price plummet so hard you'll fucking wish you didn't come after me.
I owned EA, you think you stand any better chance?
Bring, it, Microsoft. You already know who I am, please, step up so I can wipe your ass out and claim self-defense from INTERNATIONAL TRAITORS SELLING TECHNOLOGY TO FORBIDDEN COUNTRIES.
You don't stand a chance.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
One has to wonder, after the mass bannings last year, pirates and modders (be they the same or otherwise) have smartened up because nobody knew exactly what criteria and flags Microsoft were using to catch the modders. Most modding forums now have a general agreement that dashboard updates were used to catch the mods. Be this the case, the modders have mostly stopped downloading dashboard updates. This would be a great way for Microsoft to catch modders. The only way to run the ISO, cracked to bypass unique keys, would be to have a modded box. Most anticipated game of the year for the 360, of course a LOT of people are going to jump all over this. Not hard for MS to look at a list of gamertags that have played the game prior to launch and compare that with authorised gamertags that received keys. Any heavy-hitting game like this that MS is publishing, especially a flagship like a Halo title, will certainly earn their attention to protect their income.
The graphics and gameplay are laughably outdated and crappy.
Not worth the download.
Holy shit. Microsoft must be LIVID.
I expect to see a massive increase in the volume of cheap '100% working great' Xbox 360 items on eBay in the next couple weeks as they ban the consoles of everyone that plays it off of Xbox Li-- Oh damn.
Nevermind. I imagine Microsoft is quite pleased with this turn of events. What with the increased demand for new 360s and whatnot...
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
I always expect to see the 100s of posts meant to somehow justify or downplay the pirating of *insert media type here* . It's only now that I wonder how this site considers such a thing "business as usual" and yet has a relatively high percentage of computer science professionals. I know if I work on some code for a length of time, and that code is marketable, I expect to be compensated for it. I know that "fair compensation" is not the main point of contention in these pirates vs. ninjas (aka evil corps) arguments, but I'd say it is often overlooked. Take some damn responsibility people! A pirate is a pirate, no matter their motivation or personal justifications. For the record, I have pirated things....mostly music.
Maybe they should have uploaded it on Wikileaks. ^^
This of course also proves that:
DRM doesn't work
It's the evil DRM that causes people to pirate
It's the price that makes people pirate
It's the quality of the game that makes people pirate
It's the lack of demos that makes people pirate
Piracy is just a trial! I'm sure after a month of playing, people are sure to go out and buy the game when it finally comes on sale!
Piracy is good for sales! Why, all the people who pirated are sure to tell their friends how great a game this is. And I'm sure those friends would be more than happy to wait a month to buy the game, rather than just pirate it like their good friend did, because these people don't deserve free games like their pirate friend does!
pursue if you can find them ...
Read radical news here
So what are you going to charge the "stealers" with - taking 1s and 0s? What crime has been committed? "Halo" can be copied without cost to anybody. I wasn't going to buy it anwyay. Let's get into a long and pointless discussion on the differences between 'theft', 'piracy', and 'copyright infringement.' "Can't win, don't bother". Boldrin and Levine nonsense pseudo-intellectual anti-copyright argument.
have I missed any?
I wonder if they outsourced part of the development to India... my company did that once... and a few months down the road our software was suddenly available on filesharing networks for free.
Big surprise!
I went scouring the torrent sites just to realize there was no PC port yet...
Thats what I get for trying on my eyepatch before the coffee.
you need to do a JTAG MOD to use your own HDD?
Why can't M$ be like Sony and let you use your own HDD?
Microsoft is said to be "aggressively pursuing" whoever grabbed the files without their permission.
Yes, that does them a lot of good...
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
What better way to uber-banhammer XBL than a situation like this? It's not like the leak will actually hurt potential sales.... Pirate != Lost Sale ... they wouldn't have bought it anyway... they're pirates.... If the tech didn't exist to "backup" games, these people would probably just borrow the game from a friend at some point - not to copy, but simply to play it through.
Halo 2 was leaked in much the same way, but somehow it still set a record for the best-selling game at that time. Like it or not, Halo is the Harry-Potter of video games.
halo 3 was a good game. But then Bungie decided to make the piece of shit game known as ODST. Not only did it suck so bad my friends went out of their way to stop me from getting it, but now they have it so that you can't play certain multiplayer game types without the maps from ODST. That's right, they held their own fucking game that I paid for, hostage to getting the expansion. Now I can only play 2 game types with my brother on social. Me and my brother really enjoyed the beta for reach, but if they pull this shit again I'm never purchasing another Bungie game ever (my brother's friends have already decided to do that).
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When i read the hackers got it from their servers but didn't want to release it i thought BULL SHIT.
Then i got to play firefight and co op campaign last night and i even got to use my new 8 gig flash drive to do it :D
Oh look, a guy with a -1 posting level accusing the moderation system of being injust. How quaint.
they probably organized the leak themselves ...
if not they should be proud of the enthusiastic public demand.
"injust" isn't a word, idiot...
Oh... well, it's in the Merriam-Webster Unabridged dictionary along with a lot of other arrangements of characters that apparently aren't words either.
you are NOTHING.
Ah, that's what we were waiting for!
and no other dictionary includes the word, including the merriam-webster online dictionary.
you're an idiot.
"injust" isn't a word
includes the word
You just contradicted yourself. First you said it isn’t a word. Then you called it a word. Who’s the idiot?
including the merriam-webster online dictionary
Incorrect. It is most definitely in a “Merriam-Webster online dictionary”: the online edition of the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary. The word isn’t in the “free Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary”, but that isn’t what you said.
In any case, I’m sorry you choose to cripple yourself by only using dictionaries that contain the commonest words.
Halo 3 WAS a good game. It was even better when it was called Halo: Combat Evolved.
In Soviet Russia Halo Leaks You!
the string of letters
the word
omg u did it again lol wtf pwnt noob.
you're an idiot.