Halo 2 Hacked
Fans of the year’s most anticipated Xbox game, Halo 2, don’t have to wait until the November 9 release date to play it. Last night, pirates in the warez scene leaked what they claim to be a complete version of the sci-fi shooter on the Internet. Gamespot reports that the version features French dialogue, and that it’s readily available on newsgroups and P2P groups.
“We consider downloading this code or making it available for others to download as theft,” said Microsoft, the game’s publisher, in a statement. “We are currently investigating the source of this leak with the appropriate authorities. Microsoft takes the integrity of its intellectual property extremely seriously, and we are aggressively pursuing the source of this illegal act.”
Pirated games, of course, are nothing new. But the fact that a group has pirated such a huge game so far in advance – 27 days! – is pretty incredible. Ultimately, however, I question the impact that such a leak will have on the game’s sales. Most players, after all, don’t have the will or skills to play a pirated console game on a modified machine. If anything, it will only build the anticipation for players who want to get their hands on the real thing.
Keep Reading
Most Popular
The inside story of how ChatGPT was built from the people who made it
Exclusive conversations that take us behind the scenes of a cultural phenomenon.
How Rust went from a side project to the world’s most-loved programming language
For decades, coders wrote critical systems in C and C++. Now they turn to Rust.
ChatGPT is about to revolutionize the economy. We need to decide what that looks like.
New large language models will transform many jobs. Whether they will lead to widespread prosperity or not is up to us.
Design thinking was supposed to fix the world. Where did it go wrong?
An approach that promised to democratize design may have done the opposite.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.