It's not uncommon for parents to dish out punishments to their children that consist of "no video games for a week", or even "no video games for a month" for the larger infractions.  Now imagine just how bad you'd have to be to have your games taken away for the next eight thousand years.  Yup, it looks like some poor sap out there accessed Halo 3 for the Microsoft Xbox 360 through Xbox Live without permission and, as punishment, is now blocked from the service until December 31, 9999.  That's not a typo.

The gamer in question goes by the gamertag "| SCAR |" and he posted a bit about his adventures on the Xboxic forums. Now first of all, this wasn't a retail version of Halo 3. Scar was playing the Halo 3 Epsilon. You may have heard of it. Thing is, the Epsilon is very similar to the Halo 3 Beta we all took part in. And as you'll see in a minute, also very similar to the COD4 Beta. So, it wasn't a matter of the person being able to play with the 360 disconnected. The fact is that the Epsilon sends a constant stream of data back to Bungie HQ for processing. Also, it should be noted that this means the console did not need to be modded for this banning to happen. The Epsilon was not a backup or copy. It was legitimately downloaded.

There shall be no Halo 3 until it's time, I guess.  On the other hand, seeing as how they say that good things come to those who wait, I'd expect that waiting 7,992 years to play Halo 3 would turn the gaming experience into some kind of nirvanic euphoria.  Provided that the Xbox of the future is backwards compatible, of course.