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Your Early Retail Copy of LittleBigPlanet Just Went Up In Value

Muslim holy text found on LittleBigPlanet soundtrack, game delayed worldwide.

We're right there with ya, little guy.
We're right there with ya, little guy.
Well, if you managed to find a retailer that was willing to break the street date for LittleBigPlanet and sell you one, hang onto it, because it seems to be something of a rarity now.

Sony has confirmed to Eurogamer that LittleBigPlanet has been delayed from its release date--originally scheduled for next week--and that no new date is available. That's a worldwide delay, by the way, not just a European delay.

Why? Because one of the songs licensed for the soundtrack contains bits of text from the Qu'ran. In an effort to not offend the Muslim community, Sony is recalling the game to edit out the song.

A thread found on Sony's European forums gives a bit more detail, claiming that the statements are made during the third level. Also according to this thread, the song is Tapha Niang by Toumani Diabate's Symmetrical Orchestra. At two points in the song, phrases that translate to "every soul shall have the taste of death" and "all that is on earth will perish" are heard.

I'll just point out here that those are fairly heavy statements for a game like LittleBigPlanet to be making, religious text or not. The offending bits can currently be heard here.

SCEE claims that a new date will be made available shortly. Most major US retailers seem to still be showing the original 10/21 ship date as of this writing.

[UPDATE] Sony's Director of Corporate Communications & Social Media, Patrick Seybold, has posted an update on SCEA's official blog announcing that the game's release will only be delayed by one week, putting it on shelves during the week of October 27. That's a pretty fast turnaround!
Jeff Gerstmann on Google+

211 Comments

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Stevokenevo

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Edited By Stevokenevo

its pretty obvious decision from sony's perspective.  they are massively hyping this game to ALL audiences in an attempt to put the ps3 out there, so to speak. 

If this copy of the game came out, the majority of us people wouldnt be bothered, however just imagine the newspaper headlines in todays age. 
"Family friendly SONY game responsible for converting my son to a terrorist!"
"Sony predicts end of the world!"
"Sackboy branded a racist!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1"
We all know the newspapers are attention grabbing whores.

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Geno

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Edited By Geno

^

That may be true as well.

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reversethedevil

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Edited By reversethedevil

haaaa swearing and LBP go hand in hand. why don't they just patch it?, noone would care if it was the Bible why are they so sensitive?

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dogbox

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Edited By dogbox

That's a pretty big bummer. Hopefully the recall is swift and they can re-use a lot of the materials to minimize the delay. Until next time, LittleBigPlanet.

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TadThuggish

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Edited By TadThuggish

Regardless of what you believe, the Qur'an is a BOOK.  It is a BOOK.

It's not like if Crime & Punishment found its way into a game people would lose their shit.

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DavidLeeRoth

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Edited By DavidLeeRoth

LOL!

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Afroman269

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Edited By Afroman269

Of course they going to have to fix this because the last thing Sony need is for the extremists to call a jihad on their ass.

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chililili

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Edited By chililili

Its october 27 date for NA now people. Also religion sucks balls.

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chavafx

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Edited By chavafx

nooo why iwhs buying little big planet and fable2 on the 21  why why i live on  a island so to me  going out is just super spensive now i only have (fable 2)) o welll little big planet vetter horru up cuz if it comes near gears 2 i will not buy it cuz thats more popular  and every frind is going to buy it it means bye bye to  everythingalse

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Death_Burnout

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Edited By Death_Burnout

well i knew it would be too good to be true to have Saints Row 2 one week and then LBP the next

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Junpei

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Edited By Junpei

interesting. the store I work at ot it shipped in this past Tuesday but the street date is set for the 21st. Wonder if the recall went through yet.

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ProxySoldier

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Edited By ProxySoldier

It's not the words themselves which are offensive, it's the fact that the words from the Q'uran were put to music. Which really takes the ridiculousness level to the next factor.

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John

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Edited By John

Man, I hate religions.

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Pibo47

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Edited By Pibo47

Are you fucking serious? This is the biggest joke ever, who cares if a few people get offended....wow....just fucking wow...

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kingmasters

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Edited By kingmasters

farcry 2 just took your spot LBP

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Media_Master

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Edited By Media_Master

WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THIS WOULD HAPPEN?!

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Skogen

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Edited By Skogen

Who cares if people get offended? There are ethical standards companies need to abide by, don't blame Islam for this, blame Sony.

Just because the western world takes this as some sort of joke doesn't mean the rest of the world is ok with it.

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enigma

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Edited By enigma

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I truly believe that religion is the most destructive thing that man has ever come up with. Look at all the wars it has started, the millions of deaths over the years, all in the name of an invisible man who lives in the sky. Religion is a fairy tale used to scare children. This over-reaction to some words in a fictional book are par for the course. IT'S JUST A GAME, GET OVER IT!

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eternaLightness

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Edited By eternaLightness

Now see that's not that bad is it. Now let's hug and make up :D

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Buccura

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Edited By Buccura

Wait, I actually saw boxes of the game in my Target's electronic stockroom.

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Milkman

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Edited By Milkman

I'm sure half the people posting "HOW ARE YOU OFFENDED?!! AHHHH!!" are not Muslim. I'm not Muslim either but this is how their religion works. And you have to look at with an open mind. The Islam religion says that words from the Qu'ran can't be mention in any form of media. And that's what they believe. I think its just as ridiculous as you do but that doesn't mean you have the right to flat out bash their religion. Besides, LittleBigPlanet got coming out the 27th is much better because if it came out on the 21th, then it would be the same day as Fable II and Far Cry 2.

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Gorlith

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Edited By Gorlith

actually enigma your opinion is pretty popular among gamers.
regardless this game is being delayed by like a week. i don't know why people are freaking out.

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FotherMucker

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Edited By FotherMucker

This was a disappointment. Lets hope none of the songs in fable 2 contain lyrics from the bible or something.

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deadly_polo

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Edited By deadly_polo

whoops

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calf_exercises

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Edited By calf_exercises

I almost went into cardiac arrest then, but i think I can wait one more week...

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Geno

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Edited By Geno

Milkman said: "I'm sure half the people posting "HOW ARE YOU OFFENDED?!! AHHHH!!" are not Muslim. I'm not Muslim either but this is how their religion works. And you have to look at with an open mind. The Islam religion says that words from the Qu'ran can't be mention in any form of media. And that's what they believe. I think its just as ridiculous as you do but that doesn't mean you have the right to flat out bash their religion. Besides, LittleBigPlanet got coming out the 27th is much better because if it came out on the 21th, then it would be the same day as Fable II and Far Cry 2."

The "everyone's opinion is equal and we should all be open minded and respect each other" argument is pretty much auto-fail. It just means you have no idea what you're talking about and so must resort to pandering to political correctness. The religion and culture that legally allows rape of women, execution of homosexuals and religious converts, and endorses slavery, is now censoring an innocent game that has nothing to do with them except using some generic lyrics that could've come from anywhere (heck if that same text isn't found in every Japanese RPG ever made). Yeah, a muslim high religious official hasn't come out yet like in the Denmark comic strip incident, but then why would Sony/MM be so quick to react? Because they know it doesn't even take that for extremists to go off and do something stupid. This isn't racism or ethnocentrism, just look at recent history and current events. Religion should learn to back the fuck off from things that don't apply to them anyway, namely, you know, the modern world. Separation of Church and State anyone?

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Kowalski

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Edited By Kowalski

Freedom of speach is going bye-bye in the West. Thanks Islam! (Or organised religion in general for that matter)

This is just cowardly and insane.

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Dryker

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Edited By Dryker
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Shadow

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Edited By Shadow

dude...nothing in the title of the story is a joke.  What is that Call of Duty beta doing to you?

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deactivated-6296e29cde7c5

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As a proud Muslim, I would like to say, I am not offended. I hear Biblical references in all types of media, all the time. When I say Biblical, I mean the Qur'an, the Holy Bible, etc.
I pretty much agree with Meltbrain's comment. It's not nearly offensive as those sorry souls who are making 9/11 parody levels (I don't blame the developer's for that, just the people who misuse the power of the game).
Now to comment on the delay, I don't mind much, I've already preordered, and have a ton of games to finish in the meanwhile.

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Geno

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Edited By Geno

Fragstoff said: "you really want to look at recent history and say that racism and ethnocentrism isn't apart of this? unbelievable. Your all over the place, get your thoughts together before next time"

Why...don't you? Read up on the current situation of the UK and Islamism. If racism or ethnocentrism is involved, it's certainly not on the part of the western world.

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DarthStone

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Edited By DarthStone

OK So, now that we are all boned by this decision, how many levels in LBP during the first month are going to be expressions of people's racism and misunderstanding of the muslim culture? 

HELLO-MOHAMMED-MONSTER-THAT-ATTACKS-YOU-WITH-BURNING-QURAN-BOOKS-LEVEL!!!

You see? Religion + ANYTHING = FAIL
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fraser

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Edited By fraser

Well that's pretty good news for Dead Space, Fable 2 and Farcry 2 over here in the UK!  One less title to be released on the 24th

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TheGreatGuero

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Edited By TheGreatGuero

That's pretty crazy.

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Clean

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Edited By Clean

Honestly i find that stupid, just give us the game : (

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DIJ

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Edited By DIJ

Games need to learn to grow a sack and cross the line deliberately. Art's going to offend some people some of the time, and I'm not sure that you're losing a lot of sales offending hardcore Muslims anyway.

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Media_Master

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Edited By Media_Master

Rarity!!!!!!!!!!

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deactivated-5806ee571ffac

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so stupid

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GrimReaper29045

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Edited By GrimReaper29045

I don't even own a PS3 and im pissed that it's getting the push back. I just wanted to look at it over a friends house.

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SniperWolf

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Edited By SniperWolf

We Muslims consider the mixing of music and words from our Holy Quran deeply offending. We hope you would remove that track from the game immediately via an online patch, and make sure that all future shipments of the game disk do not contain it.

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RedSox8933

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Edited By RedSox8933

AHHH!!!!

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DK

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Edited By DK

Just got an automated gamestop call about this. It said the game would be ready by the week of the 27'th

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lvl10Wizard

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Edited By lvl10Wizard

This is pathetic and I refuse to believe that this is the full reason for the delay. If the words where from the Bible would the recall still happen?

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dtran1212

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Edited By dtran1212

well, the good thing is that i'll have time to save up some money

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Lies

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Edited By Lies

Oh wow, that's a kinda large error.... but an incredibly fast turnaround- to patch the song out of all retail discs in a week is no small feat

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SniperWolf

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Edited By SniperWolf
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bornagain888

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Edited By bornagain888

Nothing good will come of this. Sony overreacts to religious extremists who overreact, then gamers overreact inturn. As for quotes from the Holy Bible in video games I say the more the better because the word of God does not return void but accomplishes what He sends it out to do.

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The_Icon

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Edited By The_Icon

Europe is getting it on 31st.

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AllanIceman

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Edited By AllanIceman

WTF!!