Halo 3 Microsoft Doublespeak?

It has been reported that Microsoft would ban those Xbox Live Accounts who are found to be playing Halo 3 prior to the worldwide release date of September 25th. This has created a rebuff from Microsoft denying that this would happen and that this punishment would only be dealt out to Microsoft employees.

I would like to say that through our retail business we received notification from our supplier today that Microsoft would, in fact, be banning Xbox Live accounts if gamers and retailers broke the embargo date. This is the email that I received today in full. I have not amended or changed any of the content:

"Strict Release Date "The worldwide release date of Halo 3 is the 25th of September 2007. If any Retailer or Video Store is found to have sold or rented a copy of any of the three skus (Legendary Edition, Collectors Edition or Standard Edition) prior to the release date they will be penalised via Microsoft. "The worldwide release date of Halo 3 Console and Halo 3 Accessories is the 20th of September 2007. If any Retailer or Video Store is found to have sold these products (Headset, Controller or Live Points Card) prior to the release date they will be penalised via Microsoft. "Please Note: "If Halo 3 is played prior to the 25th of September 2007 with your Gamertag connected to Xbox Live, this will result in your account being banned. There is no way to reverse this ban. "Please make sure that no copies are sold or rented before the 25th of September 2007. "Thank you for your cooperation."

I do not intend to break the release date, however, what kind of messages are going out here? Microsoft, on the one hand, are saying that they will not punish people for playing the game prior. However, the message that we have received states quite the opposite.

As a retailer it is also good to be able to play the games a couple of days prior to release. Then when customers come in when the game has officially been released you can give them some honest feedback on how the game plays and what other games it is like. Seems like this will not be happening with Halo 3.

It will be an interesting couple of days to see what happens and whether anyone will risk their Xbox Live Account to find out if it is true.