First it was reported that if you lived in the land of The Rising Sun or the country that lays claim to, among other things, giving the world sauerkraut, you would have had to find some other legal way to play Epic’s highly anticipated Gears of War 2. A Microsoft spokesperson told Edge, “We can confirm that Gears of War 2 will not be available in Germany or Japan indefinitely.”

This came as a very unpleasant surprise to many fans of the series in both countries considering the facts that the original Gears of War managed to move 33,212 units in its first week in Japan and that the game to date has sold 3 million units worldwide. Well shorty after the first unknown spokesperson made this claim, another anonymous spokesperson made the claim that “…no announcement has been made” about the game for Japan. Which leaves us scratching our heads and wondering what’s up with Germany?