Hot Coffee, Halo 2 Style? Well, not quite. Microsoft has pushed the release of Halo 2 for Windows Vista by one week to May 31 because of the discovery of some partial nudity in the game, which came to their attention at the last minute via the ingame editor. Apparently, when a certain glitch occurs an individual's pixelated behind is shown to gamers.



While the content is apparently not being removed for shipped copies, Microsoft is taking other measures to quell the situation. Future versions of Halo 2 will have the nude content patched out, while a online fix for shipped copies is being developed.

"It has come to our attention that an unfortunate, obscure content error which includes partial nudity was included in our initial production of Halo 2 for Windows Vista," said a Microsoft spokesperson. "As such, we have updated the initial game packaging at retailers with a label, so customers are aware before purchasing the game. Additionally, we've developed an online update which can be downloaded from www.halo2.com to remove the content."

The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) has issued GameDaily the following statement:

"After the M (Mature 17+) rating assignment was issued for Halo 2 for Vista and just prior to the shipment of the game to retail, Microsoft notified ESRB about pertinent content found in a map editor tool that is being bundled with the game. The content in question, although likely to be inaccessible to the vast majority of users, displays a photograph of an individual showing his bare backside to the user when a particular error occurs, and thus warrants a 'Partial Nudity' content descriptor in order to alert consumers to its presence in the product. Microsoft has therefore applied stickers with correct ESRB rating information to the packaging of virtually all copies that will ship to retail in the U.S. and Canada. We have been advised by Microsoft that future runs of the game will be produced without the content in question, thus negating the need for the descriptor to be displayed on those versions.

"ESRB's job is to ensure that games are appropriately labeled, and that is precisely what we did in this case. We greatly appreciate Microsoft's cooperation in this matter."

via GameDaily.biz