LittleBigPlanet has been delayed by about a week over concerns that it may offend Muslims. The game, which was supposed to ship today, was found to have a song that contains phrases from the Koran. As such, Sony has pushed back the game’s release to October 29.
The offending phrases were found by a Muslim gamer who was playing the beta. The singer of the song, “Tapha Niang,” is Toumani Diabaté. The video here shows the level in question, complete with offensive song. We show it here not to shock or titillate, but because we know you’re smart enough to go to YouTube within three songs of finding out the name of the song.
Sorta reminds me of when Nintendo had to recall The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time because the chanting in the Fire Temple sounded like a Muslim prayer chant.
Let’s try to be civil about this: if it offends someone, fine. Take the week to tweak the code and then we avoid any further headaches.
And now I’m downloading a bunch of Diabaté’s albums. Not bad at all.