Sony issues planet-wide LittleBigPlanet recall

Quotations from the Qu'ran in soundtrack prompt sudden delay of Sony's platformer in all territories, says SCEE; recall comes too late to keep some US copies from going out to customers.

Sony's LittleBigPlanet is one of the most high-profile releases of this Christmas season. Developer Media Molecule has seen its game go from indie darling to AAA system-seller in the past year, thanks to the many appearances that the game has made at trade shows and events.

However, fans of the game are going to have to wait slightly longer to get the game. Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has announced it is recalling the game from retailers, it learned that the soundtrack featured some lines from the Qu'ran backed with music. A SCEE representative also confirmed to GameSpot that this recall would be global, and could not confirm when the game would now actually hit shelves with the offending music removed.

The confirmation follows rumours that that Singing Safari level of the game features a song with two expressions found in Islam's central holy text, the Qur'an. Cached pages on the official PlayStation forum claim that the two phrases are (literally translated) "every soul shall have the taste of death" and "all that is on earth will perish."

While Sony's release does not confirm that the above lines are in the game, they do claim that "one of the background music tracks licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Qur'an."

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe's release continues, "we have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologise for any offence that this may have caused." It ends by saying that the company will confirm the new launch date shortly.