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Partial nudity delays 'Halo 2' for Vista

The game is now expected to hit the stores sometime in the first week of June, due to an "obscure content error," Microsoft says.

Dawn Kawamoto Former Staff writer, CNET News
Dawn Kawamoto covered enterprise security and financial news relating to technology for CNET News.
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Dawn Kawamoto
Microsoft is delaying the release of Halo 2 for Windows Vista after partial nudity on the game was discovered, the software giant said Friday.

Halo 2 for Windows Vista is now expected to hit the stores sometime in the first week of June, approximately two weeks behind the revised May 22 schedule. The game was originally scheduled for release on May 8, but was delayed due to some technical problems, Microsoft said at the time.

The software giant attributes the most recent delay to an "obscure content error" found in the initial production of Halo 2's map editor. That error was partial nudity.

Despite the error, Microsoft said it would be difficult to stumble across the offending content.

"This file is not in the game itself, nor will someone who simply plays the game ever encounter it," Microsoft stated.

The company has no plans to change the rating of its game, given it affects only the initial run of games and not subsequent shipments. Warning labels will be placed on packaging for the affected games, and Microsoft has developed a patch that can be downloaded to remove the content in question.