XBLA Ultimate Mortal Combat 3 on Marketplace – before getting yanked out

File this under the Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot heading. Microsoft revealed in a marketing email that Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 would be available by early 2007. Well, we haven’t popped the corks off of our champagne bottles yet, and it still certainly feels like October 2006 outside, but IGN suddenly noticed that UMK3 was available on the Xbox Marketplace last Friday. 43.62MB of feel-good Fatality goodness for 800 MS points.

Yeah, that’s weird. Aren’t new releases more of an Xbox Live Arcade Wednesdays thing? Then, even weirder is that just as quickly as it popped up, it suddenly vanished from Marketplace. Say it with us: Whiskey-Tango- Foxtrot?

It wasn’t just IGN who noticed it, too. Over at the Gamespot forums, there are some whom claim to have seen the game, and have even downloaded it. And the kicker comes from Xboxic, one of whose members was able to play the game and place the game’s Gamercard signature to his forum sig. (We presume that being able to download UMK3 this early is in itself an Achievement).

We screencapped his post and extracted his Gamecard sig as proof. We’ve blanked out his ID data for privacy’s sake, but come and see for yourself:

The general conclusion among forum posters in Gamespot, and the Xboxic staff, is that this was some screw-up by someone who didn’t get the memo (that MS intends UMK3 to be out a lot later than last Friday), and that someone, they further theorized, must now be looking for a new job. Fatality, indeed. Management wins.

Okay, jokes aside, but have you guys seen UMK3 for its brief, ghostly appearance on Marketplace? Let us know.

File this under the Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot heading. Microsoft revealed in a marketing email that Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 would be available by early 2007. Well, we haven’t popped the corks off of our champagne bottles yet, and it still certainly feels like October 2006 outside, but IGN suddenly noticed that UMK3 was available on the Xbox Marketplace last Friday. 43.62MB of feel-good Fatality goodness for 800 MS points.

Yeah, that’s weird. Aren’t new releases more of an Xbox Live Arcade Wednesdays thing? Then, even weirder is that just as quickly as it popped up, it suddenly vanished from Marketplace. Say it with us: Whiskey-Tango- Foxtrot?

It wasn’t just IGN who noticed it, too. Over at the Gamespot forums, there are some whom claim to have seen the game, and have even downloaded it. And the kicker comes from Xboxic, one of whose members was able to play the game and place the game’s Gamercard signature to his forum sig. (We presume that being able to download UMK3 this early is in itself an Achievement).

We screencapped his post and extracted his Gamecard sig as proof. We’ve blanked out his ID data for privacy’s sake, but come and see for yourself:

The general conclusion among forum posters in Gamespot, and the Xboxic staff, is that this was some screw-up by someone who didn’t get the memo (that MS intends UMK3 to be out a lot later than last Friday), and that someone, they further theorized, must now be looking for a new job. Fatality, indeed. Management wins.

Okay, jokes aside, but have you guys seen UMK3 for its brief, ghostly appearance on Marketplace? Let us know.