Gamers cash in on LittleBigPlanet delay
Title pulled over Koran reference
Updated The value of the PlayStation 3 game LittleBigPlanet has rocketed on eBay as sellers attempt to capitalise upon Sony's decision to temporarily withdraw the title, found to contain lines from the Koran.
Sony's LittleBigPlanet: delayed
Sony announced late last week that it had chosen to delay the game’s worldwide launch – which was set for this week in the UK – because during a “review process prior to the release”, it discovered that some of the game’s background music tracks contained two quotations from the Koran, the holy Islamic text.
However, some early copies of the game claimed to contain the controversial music tracks in the fourth level have now begun to appear on eBay, selling for upwards of £135 ($236/€175) on the back of their rarity value.
According to one seller’s description, his version “will be quite rare in the future” because Sony "recalled" the title lest Muslims become upset by it.
Sony confirmed that an amended version of the title will be shipped to North America next week. The revised UK release date has not yet been announced.
Sony did not re-launch Resistance: Fall of Man last year when the title became the focus of complaints from British Christians after it emerged the game features a level set in a church that looks a lot like Manchester Cathedral.
Sony did, however, apologise for any offence caused.
Update
Sony's since told Register Hardware that "LittleBigPlanet will start to appear in stores no later than the week commencing Monday 3 November in the UK, Europe, Middle East, Australia and New Zealand, on a country by country basis".
COMMENTS
Tethered Goat
Is everyone 100% confident that this is about a dodgy song or is this a good way for Sony to effectively stagger the release of LBP (and load on their servers). It just seem odd don’t you think that a beta has been running for some time and no-one complained, apart from the operational boys who were stressing about the lack of inherent scalability of their back end.
Also, I find it amazing that a game capable of really breaking down barriers and bring people of all faiths together in one little big world has now incited more race hate than 911.
Alien, has I don’t want to be part of this world and was planning on moving into the little big planet on Friday.
Somewhere on the internet...
Not all Muslims find it offensive, no. But not all readers of The Register (a decidedly smaller population itself) were planning on buying this game in the first couple of weeks of release. There's almost certainly somewhere on the Internet where a load of Muslims who don't particularly care about PS3 platformers are accusing teenagers of blowing their whining out of all proportion because they have to wait a few days before they can start playing.
Marketing ploy
This stunt smells of marketing imo. Get the game's attention in the news before its release. Now even more people are aware of it.
Like someone above stated, they could have kept quiet and patched it silently over PSN.
What's next? The fact that Sackboy's woolly flesh is brown? Bring on the racist comments.
All the fun.....
...of the Daily Mail without having to get ink on my fingers.
double standard?
So they'll gladly have games that shoot up churches and blaspheme against Christian values (or Bhuddist, or others), but they pull the game because one freaking soundtrack contains a vague reference to the Koran?
I ain't religious, but even I can see the completely absurd double-standard here. Of course, it's been a few hundred years now since Christians have waged holy war against those who annoy them. The Muslims seem to still be in that stage of their religious growth. That might explain said double standard.
The need to change it from "freedom OF religion" to "freedom FROM religion". Bloody idiots.
