It appears Microsoft’s upcoming big-hitting title Halo: Reach has been the subject of a security breach thanks to industrious hackers circumventing the company’s presumed less than stringent network security restrictions.
Though not released until September 14th, Microsoft decided to seed the full game on Xbox Live enabling reviewers to grab an early copy and put some pre-release leg-work in. Putting a sky-high MS point amount of 99,999 (roughly £1,000 / €1,250) on the title, hackers from mod-site GameTuts somehow managed to crack the code and snag themselves a download.
Posts over on the site’s forum have since been removed, though some have been reiterated on NeoGAF. The lost comments (disjointedly) stated:
“”The GameTuts staff have all participated in the work of “Halo: Reach”. The main members of our team, Matty and Cthulhu have worked endless hours, pushing the barriers to allow our golden faces play ‘Halo: Reach.’ The intelligent mind of our beloved Admin, Matty, worked endlessly to acquire this game, the deed was done. The moderator of GameTuts, Cthulhu is now the man of his word to work on the game file and allow our members see ‘Halo: Reach’ before its release.”
This is what the download (apparently) looked like.
Based on similar such exploits in the past, expect consoles found to have played Halo: Reach before its official street date to be perma-banned by Microsoft.
Wow, today really has been a day of covert shenanigans.
Source: NeoGAF
BIGAL-1992
You forgot to mention that the ending has been put up all over youtube.
Vaile23
has it?!
BIGAL-1992
Yes. Hell, I’ve watched it to convince me that it was the real deal. There’s several videos of it on youtube.
Alex_Assassin_08
Seriously? Why would people do that.
What arrogant pricks.
funkyellowmonkey(ps3 id)
lol, pretty crazy! lol
DrNate86
Oops! Oh well, that’s an easy £1000 made by MS!
Juelz345
Um, they didn’t actually pay for it.
“GameTuts somehow managed to crack the code” emphasis on crack the code.
DrNate86
Oh yeah, oops again!
Stitch
The code to get to the download page perhaps? Maybe they did pay for it since they seem to love halo so much!
Stitch
Actually it seems that there is nothing to suggest that the modders actually paid that amount but instead managed to hack into the network and made a copy of the review code. *sorry!*
Uhyve
Yeah, unfortunately, you can’t get more than 70000 on an account at any one time, would have been a much more interesting way for hackers to get hold of the game. Dunno why though, I bet there would be a few rich people who’d be willing to make MS a buttload of money…
Walker
How does a gaming website get so much they can waste £1000 on one game!?
Walker
So much money that should be
Kovacs
They didn’t pay the amount. They got around it.
DeathByNumbers
the forum se7ensins, are pretty sure that game-tuts were not able to acquire reach and simply took the credit for someone else who was able to pull it over http. or something…
bajere
Oops, never mind, its only another Halo to add to the others
Grey_Ghost13
Ha Ha, why put on Live in front of the public before release in the first place?
Porcupine_I
Jesus dies on page 681
KeRaSh
Major spoiler! Now I refuse to read it! :P
ico
A fausand pound?! Must be some game! Think I’ll wait and see if Asda or Tesco do it cheap at launch and save myself £975. That way I can use what I’ve saved on buying meat, vegetables and confectionary goodness from the supermarket.
Kovacs
Just to reiterate: there is nothing to suggest that the modders paid that amount. They’re hackers. They got it for free.
BIGAL-1992
Kovacs is right. From what I’ve heard, they managed to hack into the network and made a copy of the review code.
Danza Di Fuoco E Ghiaccio
looked like a joke to me
TSBonyman
This bit at the bottom of the dwnload pic made me chuckle..
“From the beginning, you know the end. Halo : Reach. Fall 2010. There are no refunds for this item.”