This isn't a marketing scam, the game is in stores before it actually gets released. If you count how many game dedicated stores there are out there, and the salary that their employees receive you would understand why they leak games. Same thing happened to Halo 3, it wasn't a marketing scam. As a matter of fact most of the people I know downloaded the game and opted not to buy it since they can play on live with it. As to the dude who said software piracy on the PC is overrated, in order to play pirated games on the 360 you need to 1. Buy a PCI SATA chipset if yours doesnt support the flashing process 2. Buy a mod chip (in which case your retarded) 3. Pay for someone else to flash it. In my case it takes less than 3 mintues to flash my drives firmware, but other people, with no knowledge whatsoever usually try or they and succeed or end up bricking their drive, and most opt to pay for it. On top of that in order to play your "backups" you must burn them to a DL DVD, and they aren't always cheap for some people. On the PC you can play your backups off images, never having to reburn them, saving you time and money. I'm not saying I don't enjoy playing my backups on my 360, but its much easier to do so on the PC, albeit the majority of the console fanbase consists of casual gamers who wouldnt really look into breaking their warranty sticker, or risking getting their precious gamerpoints taken away.