Be carefull if you buy it early. Microsoft have said that anyone that plays Halo 3 before sept 25th will have thier accounts banned.

That's wonderful of MS to ban people when they bought something at a store and the store was the one wrong in this case. Stay Classy MS.

It's probably a MS stunt between them and the store for yet another bit of advertising. This time free.

lol....go Microsoft, like Kasz216 said its probably a motivation to get gamers to get the game, a little bit advertising, sneaking Microsoft....:P

Not owning a 360, I didn't realize they track everything you do on it. Why would I want anyone to know what I've been playing and when I've been playing it? I could care less about rankings or point, etc.

I would have considered buying one once the price got to $200 or so, but this really could keep me away from a 360 permanently.

So they know what games are the most popular after sales and make more games that your going to like instead of games that sell well but don't get played as much?

Or find the games that didn't sell well that get played a lot so they know which games that didn't sell well should get sequels with better advertising pushes? 

As craighopkins has said, apparently Microsoft went back on their ban threat (it likely would have gotten them into trouble and a lot of bad press anyways).

I understand why they would do it. I just should have the option to opt out of it if I want.

 Yeah, they would be in a whole heap of trouble if they banned peopel who bought thegame legally and then banned them for it.  It's their network and they can do whatever they want with it, but the people who bought the game early didn't do anything wrong (they simply walked into a shop and made a purchse) and their would be a major outcry if that really happened.  MS is just getting over the whole RRoD thing, they wouldn't need something new.