The Microsoft chief of police Stephen Toulouse has said that his enforcement team is inspecting early play and applying permabans only to those with illegitimately obtained early copies of either game. Those who got their copy because a retailer broke street date are safe, Stepto says.

"Don't worry folks, anyone who bought a copy early is ok. In general, if you got a receipt, play away. These are illegit copies we're hitting," Toulouse tweeted around 4:15 pm. U.S. Pacific Time.

Reader SK sent us that screengrab and basically admitted he visited a bootlegger with a Forza 3 copy. After getting his 360 modded, he played it for 5 days before getting banz0red.

"I called another friend who went in on wednesday to pick up a copy and get his box done too, and he also received a ban for the same reason," says SK. However, SK says the permaban is account only, not console specific. "I made a new XBL account and was back up and running (minus playing f3, of course) within an hour."

Problem being, while Polyphony Digital are still working on GT5 - meaning they can just throw the car into the game - Forza 3 is done. So Turn10 and Microsoft are going to release the thing as DLC shortly after the game's release.

The car's announcement carries no mention of the word "free", however, so don't go counting on it being an early Christmas from the studio.

Seattle's Best will definitely figure into the equation, as we've flown our two East coast writers over to the West coast for the show. I'm sitting here enjoying a hazelnut mocha-something or another as I look over our rather crowded schedule. We've got previews, and hands-on time lined up for everything from eagerly anticipated console titles like Forza and MAG to the latest and greatest PC MMO titles, including looks at Guild Wars 2 and Funcom's modern day MMO The Secret World.

Along with the game time, we've got interviews lined up with industry luminaries, coverage of events from the show floor, parties, cosplay, and who knows what else. Stay tuned all weekend long to see what goodness spawns from the depths of the 2009 Penny Arcade Expo.

We're definitely going to need more coffee.

While we've got you, if you're in Europe, you're in luck, as Microsoft today announced the game will be out on October 23, which is over three weeks earlier than the North American launch on October 27.

UPDATE - We got a press release yesterday from Microsoft saying the game's release date was October 3. There was a typo. It's actually October 23.

If you sign up and become a VIP member of the Forza 3 community, you'll get access to these five cars.
If you sign up and become a VIP member of the Forza 3 community, you'll get access to these five cars.
Preorder the game and you'll get this...tastefully-adorned Audi.
If you sign up and become a VIP member of the Forza 3 community, you'll get access to these five cars.
If you sign up and become a VIP member of the Forza 3 community, you'll get access to these five cars.
Recognise these? Course you do. They were on the cover of Forza 2. These are available only to those who purchase the Collector's Edition.
Preorder the game and you'll get this...tastefully-adorned Audi.
Preorder the game and you'll get this...tastefully-adorned Audi.
If you sign up and become a VIP member of the Forza 3 community, you'll get access to these five cars.
Preorder the game and you'll get this...tastefully-adorned Audi.

Instead, the exact release date for the game in North America is October 27. No idea yet for Europe, but for Aussies and Kiwis, good news! It'll be out a little earlier, on October 23.

Along with the announcement, Microsoft sent along a pic of the finished box art for the game's special edition, which we told you about last month.

Those parting with the extra cash will receive:

- a 2GB USB drive and a keychain, both "specially branded" (ie they've got the Forza logo on them)

- "Forza Motorsport VIP Membership", which will "entitle gamers to special treatment at the game's auction house, community storefront, and on the game's official forums."

- 5 cars, "available only through your VIP membership"

- "Exclusive Collector's Edition Car Pack", which is five cars that have been "hand tuned and hand painted by the developers at Turn 10"

- A Forza 3 dashboard theme.

So a couple of cheap trinkets, vague community perks and some in-game cars is worth $20 now? What a world we live in.

[via GameSpot & GameStop]

Is that next GTA episode really called Blood And a Four-Leaf Clover?

Is Metal Gear Solid + Oxide about the be unveiled at the Microsoft E3 press briefing on June 1?

Such are the rumors being bandied in the increasingly-detailed, increasingly-popular, but who-knows-if-it-is-true Game Fork Twitter feed.

The always-responsible news division at GameSpot dumped the accumulated tweets of mystery Twitterer Game Fork into their rumors section earlier this week, lending just a little credence to a Twitter feed that's been fun to read.

Baffled, we checked with Rockstar about BAAFLC. They e-mailed back: "We don't comment on rumors or speculation."

We checked in with ever-quotable Microsoft group product manager and super-spokesman Aaron Greenberg. He e-mailed too: "I can confirm that this post is completely uninformed and does not even come close to matching our news for E3. You can't believe everything you read, but it is fun to see people trying to guess what will be shown at the show and we are excited to sharing our real news with everyone on June 1st."

And we were left, thinking, wouldn't the world be an easier place to live in if people just spoke clearly and everyone Twittered using their real name?

For the record, Microsoft took the unusual step prior to this E3 of not participating int he traditional spring pre-E3 Game Critics' tour. So while outlets including this one are sitting on embargoed news from the likes of EA and Activision — and on info offered by major publishers who ran their own satellite pre-E3 exhibitions — Microsoft has shown nothing to the press. If Game Fork is a real leak, he or she is not leaking from a press tour in the U.S. Maybe he's a viral marketer...

Rumor: Turn 10 To Develop Project Gotham 5, Announcement Soon [AddictGaming]

• The next Call of Duty will be known as "World at War" instead of CoD5. There are five box concepts leaked. There's speculation that calling it World at War is an effort to keep the lifespan of hot-selling CoD4 running as long as possible.

• Forza Motorsport 3 is so huge that the limitations of the DVD format became an issue. It will include 400 cars, 100 tracks and must ship on two discs. Car deformation was also mentioned as a feature of the new title.

Possible CoD5 Rename, Plus Boxarts and pic [Xbox 360 Fanboy]

Forza Will Have 2 Discs, 400 Cars, More [Xbox 360 Fanboy]

...you know, we have a great internal racing studio in Turn 10, the creators of Forza Motorsport. And our goal is to roll the studio so that they can do more creative execution within the racing space. So you can imagine a future where they would develop a new version of Project Gotham Racing.

Shane Kim Interview [Kikizo]

I was hoping my car would make the list but apparently the elitist bastards are to high and mighty to include a 96 Nissan Sentra with its front end crushed by a landscape truck. Figures! Michael Fahey

Forza Motorsport 2's Official Car List [Forza Motor Sports]

Forza 2 was on display for the first time at TGS, and what they had to show was looking very worthy of following up its hugely successful predecessor. Planning for the sequel started even before the launch of the original, and the game is now looking to make it out in the first quarter of 2007, after a delay that was deemed necessary in order to release a game that they'd be happy with.

As with the first one, the goal is to offer the most complete racing experience possible, offering up some 300 cars, and introducing for this version the Lamborghini and some BMW production cars. They were really pushing the fact that each car will offer high levels of customization, especially when it comes to the outside of the vehicles, which you should be able to mod to your hearts content with multiple levels of skins.

Detail levels are also upped, so no more textures for parts like headlights, which really becomes noticeable when you see the amount of damage that can be done to the cars. Not only is damage apparent — and crunchy — parts that come off the cars will stay on the track until the end of the race, and will act as obstacles for other cars on the track.

The game won't have a cockpit view — it was deemed too difficult to include all those car interiors — so don't expect any PGR3 in-cockpit views. The game will support the Xbox 360 steering wheel, with force feedback and rumble support giving off different feels depending on the road surface, or even the set of tires equipped on the car.

As far as XBL support, multi-player races will include up to 12 cars, with a photo mode that will let you share pics (in jpeg format) of favorite racing moments. An additional community-based online mode will be announced in about a month. Do expect to be able to download new cars, tracks, but no word (or decisions) yet on pricing. Jean Snow