Recently there has been a rise in Halo 4 beta scams—fake websites, fake emails, fake offers for fake trials—many of them designed to get users to give up their Xbox Live passwords. In the latest hassle, Microsoft has taken legal action against the owners of the recently registered domain Halo4beta.net. This seems to be a direct follow up to a tweet by David Ellis of 343 Industries from just a few weeks ago which stated, “If you see a page claiming to allow you to sign up for a Halo 4 beta be advised, IT’S A FAKE.” Presumably that tweet was referring to Halo4beta.net. Otherwise there have been multiple fake website issues, which is also possible in light of the popularity of the Halo franchise.
Microsoft’s first move was to file a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum. In response, the owner of the Halo4beta.net domain closed down the fake website, hoping to avoid further confrontation. This isn’t all that Microsoft wants though—Microsoft wants the domain transferred to them so that they can protect their brand. In June of 2011 there was a similar dispute involving the domain Halo4.com. While Microsoft didn’t sue the owner or pursue legal action, they did pay the owner an undisclosed sum of money for the transfer of the domain name. None of the details of the deal were ever made public, but in this case we can expect the issue to be resolved swiftly by the National Arbitration Panel.
Microsoft has stated that we can expect Halo 4 to be released for Xbox 360 by the end of the year. Meanwhile we still don’t know when we can expect to see the Xbox 720, but we’ll likely be waiting until 2013 or later for the next generation console to hit stores.
Christopher D. Eral
yes halo 4 expected to leave