HMV wants Microsoft to sanction Argos for Halo 3 error

In a further twist to the Halo 3/Argos broken street date drama, rival retailer HMV has called on Microsoft to impose “appropriate sanctions” on anyone who “blatantly flout street dates“.

On Wednesday September 19, an administration error at Argos allowed some gamers to purchase the game a full week before its official release. We managed to do the same, and you can see proof here.

Argos has since apologised for its high-profile error, telling MCV it didn’t deliberately break the street date.

And Neil Thompson, senior regional director for the UK and Ireland at Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices division, told Gamesindustry.biz that the company would not be taking any action over the affair.

However, Duncan La Barre, online games specialist at HMV told Pro-G that the company hoped Microsoft would change their mind.

He said: “Apparently customers were told via a competitor website that they could collect their copy of Halo 3 a week before the game’s street date. The company say it was a genuine admin mistake, and apparently only 26 copies made it out the door.

“hmv.com certainly have no intention to sell Halo 3 before its September 26 release date – Microsoft are key partners of ours, and there’s no way we want to let them down by selling one of the biggest games of the year ahead of the rest of the market. Doing so threatens to jeopardise what is a fantastic relationship with Microsoft, and more importantly, would give us an unfair advantage on the rest of the market – we like to play by the rules.

“However, we hope that any competitors that blatantly flout street dates, and let everyone else down, will face appropriate sanctions, so that such behaviour is discouraged in future.“

It’s clear that this story is going to run and run, and we’ll bring you the latest on the Halo 3 broken street data saga as it happens.