It was supposed to be one of the biggest games this holiday season for the PlayStation 3, a kid-friendly romp in which players take control of a knitted sock creature and steer him to his goals.
Now "LittleBigPlanet" finds itself orbiting around some unwanted controversy.
In the first level of the third world in the game ("Swinging Safari"), the song "Tapha Niang," by world music artist Toumani Diabate, plays in the background. Two verses of the Quran are spoken in Arabic in the song. Loosely translated, the passages are: "Every soul shall taste of death" and "All that is on earth shall perish." The text is meant to convey that everyone dies and nothing built by man is permanent.
Four days before the game was to go on sale, Sony voluntarily recalled all copies and pushed the release back to Oct. 28 to remove the song.
Patrick Seybold, director of communications for Sony Computer Entertainment of America, did not return calls. In a statement on an official PlayStation blog, he said: "We sincerely apologize for any offense that this may have caused."
Ibrahim Hoop, national communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said he appreciated Sony's sensitivity to Muslim issues, but he's concerned about backlash over the recall. "Many Americans already feel that Muslims want to censor everything," he said. "Yes, some Muslims might feel that the use of the Quran . . . might be an inappropriate use of the text, but we did not ask for this recall. In fact, we haven't received any complaints about this game."
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Now "LittleBigPlanet" finds itself orbiting around some unwanted controversy.
In the first level of the third world in the game ("Swinging Safari"), the song "Tapha Niang," by world music artist Toumani Diabate, plays in the background. Two verses of the Quran are spoken in Arabic in the song. Loosely translated, the passages are: "Every soul shall taste of death" and "All that is on earth shall perish." The text is meant to convey that everyone dies and nothing built by man is permanent.
Four days before the game was to go on sale, Sony voluntarily recalled all copies and pushed the release back to Oct. 28 to remove the song.
Patrick Seybold, director of communications for Sony Computer Entertainment of America, did not return calls. In a statement on an official PlayStation blog, he said: "We sincerely apologize for any offense that this may have caused."
Ibrahim Hoop, national communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said he appreciated Sony's sensitivity to Muslim issues, but he's concerned about backlash over the recall. "Many Americans already feel that Muslims want to censor everything," he said. "Yes, some Muslims might feel that the use of the Quran . . . might be an inappropriate use of the text, but we did not ask for this recall. In fact, we haven't received any complaints about this game."
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