Dang. So much for getting excited about next week. LittleBigPlanet’s been delayed. One of the songs on the game’s soundtrack has phrases from the Qur’an, the Islamic holy book, and to avoid causing any unnecessary offense Sony is recalling all retail stock of the game worldwide and replacing them with copies of the game free of the song in question.
Some more info after the break.
Following the appearance of this thread on the EU PlayStation forums yesterday there’s been a fair bit of confusion with regards to what is happening with LittleBigPlanet. The song in question, Tapha Niang by Toumani Diabate’s Symmetrical Orchestra, contains two Arabic phrases from the Qur’an: ’Every soul shall have the taste of death‘ and ’All that is on earth will perish’.
Optimistic, certainly, but the mixture of holy words and music as is found on this outsourced piece of music is seen as offensive to Muslims, and the poster on the PS forums thread saw fit to bring this to Sony’s attention (yet gave no hints with regards to how he got hold of the game).
With speculation abound, stores such as UK retailer Zavvi sent out emails to those who had ordered LittleBigPlanet, informing them that the date had been pushed back to the 4th of November. Then, shortly afterwards, the date was changed back to the 24th of October again.
What happened? I’m not sure, but either way, the first email Zavvi sent out appears to have predicted what was to come, as Sony issued a statement confirming that LittleBigPlanet is being delayed and that copies of the game are being recalled from retail outlets across the globe. That statement in full:
During the review process prior to the release of LittleBigPlanet, it has been brought to our attention that one of the background music tracks licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Qur’an. We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologise for any offence that this may have caused.
We will confirm the new launch date shortly.
Oh. Oh well then. That’s that.
And no, this isn’t a fiction story.
LITTLEBIGPLANET – SCEE’S OFFICIAL STATEMENT – ThreeSpeech
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
And everyone can vote for Kill Zone 2 in the forums here: http://sarcasticgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8421
@ Frawls: It looks like you will not have to buy Roth a SL after all.
he will…frawlz is just in denial
@ Frawlz
Man I totally agree with you, I don’t have a PS3, but LBP looks childish, and seems like a dumb cartoon…
KZ2 looks kinda cool….
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
I…..Cant…….Wait……..Even………Longer!!!!!!!
No problem… This helps more than it hurts LBP… The updated disc gets patched, and hopefully the sloppy controls issue is fixed right away.
The new release dates are 27. Oktober in the US and 31. Oktober in Europe.. No problem.
A week is not that bad.
people are saying they would cancel their pre-orders because of this…. seems a week delay is too much for some… what do you guys think?
what do i think? seriously, some people need to grow up and recognize that this was a smart decision and sony probably didn’t have another option…and even if they did, they chose to do the right thing even if it upsets some (extremely immature) gamers…people are getting way too worked up over a 1 week delay
but really…1 week??? and there is also a game called far cry 2 releasing very soon…so it gives us all some time to play through that
yes, it may be tragic and all
Well, as I don’t have a PS3, this doesn’t affect me. However, I don’t see what the big deal is. It’s been delayed for what, one week? That’s not very long at all.
Oh, and @ Frawlz:
Pfft, Killzone 2 looks to be just another shooter with updated graphics to me. LBP FTW! :p
Does anyone find that that’s a ridiculous thing to be offended about? I’d say that it’s a bit of a non-issue. Why would they be offended by that? Because that is what they believe. If the muslims that would get offended do actually believe what their holy book says.
@greeneyedpsyko
well, its not the fact that it was quoted but in the muslim faith its considered rude or ‘Blasphemous’ to mix+play music simultaneously while quran is being read…. I’m muslim….just thought i’d throw that out there.