Say what you will about the media overhyping of GTA's hidden Hot Coffee event, but the event left its mark on the industry and its developers. Perhaps we can see shades of this in Microsoft's decision to delay the release of Halo 2 for Vista PC platforms due to "obscure" hidden nudity. Microsoft notes the content in question not normally accessible during regular play, but is potentially viewable from the map editor tool. The Vista version of Halo 2 is now scheduled for a May 31st release in North America; this delay will allow the ESRB to accomodate for the content with additional notification warning users of potential nudity. The notifications will only apply to initial shipments of Halo 2 for Vista, as Microsoft intends on removing the offending content from future runs of the game. The ESRB itself comments:
"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."
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Okay, Halo 2 has probably about four female characters in the campaign at most. The odds of a character appearing nude would make it likely to be a male or an alien ... male.
Ew.