Ok, we all know everyone geeked out at the possibility of running around in the PS3 version of Unreal Tournament 3 as FPS legend Master Chief. While all that was fine and dandy, you figured it wouldn’t be long before Microsoft or their legal team stepped in and put a stop to this, right? Not exactly.

After the news hit BusinessWeek, attorney Don McGowan felt it was time to speak up and had this to say on Microsoft’s behalf: “Many people are talking about the Master Chief mod for Unreal Tournament 3, that allows you to play in the character of the Master Chief on the PS3. Many people are surprised Microsoft is “allowing” this. Actually it’s nothing more than the Game Content Usage Rules in action. When these were developed, people all thought they were focused on machinima. The truth is that while they do address machinima they also allow for a lot of other things. Mods like this are one of them.”

Then it gets interesting, as McGowan decides to take the time to do a little shameless plugging and throws something that could be perceived by some as a little insult in Sony’s direction: “The developers aren’t selling the mod, they’re not monetizing Microsoft’s IP, they’re just creating something to share their love of the Master Chief on a new platform. It’s a great thing for us and a great thing for the gaming community. And much though I love my friends at Epic, Unreal Tournament isn’t Halo. This will also remind people of just how great the Halo games are and remind them that if they’re done with the user-created faux-Halo experience, the real Halo is available only on the Xbox 360. And no one is taking characters from PlayStation games (do they even have any games?) and putting them on our platform…” Oooh burn!