 Months before the release of Halo 3 , the game 's final testing copy before its gold release — codenamed Epsilon and confirmed by Bungie to be almost complete — was leaked to the Internet . Microsoft reacted to this leak by having the Xbox Live accounts of gamers caught playing the Epsilon copy banned until the year 9999 . Two weeks before Halo 3 was due to be released , full retail copies of the game complete with photographs of the open game box started to appear on the internet auction site eBay . A week before Halo 3 was due for release , major UK catalog retailer Argos accidentally released some of their final retail copies of Halo 3 . Microsoft 's Entertainment and Devices division were quoted as being " disappointed that it happened " but that " it was just an honest mistake " and that Microsoft had no intention of punishing Argos for the error . 
