'Won't look any better than Halo 2', says rival

Sony has been caught out editing the Wikipedia entry for Microsoft's highly anticipated shooter Halo 3.

The original entry stated: 'Halo 3, the third game in the best-selling Xbox game franchise Halo, is a highly anticipated first-person shooter video game under development by Bungie Studios for the Xbox 360 and is expected to "set a new high water mark" for next-generation games.'

However, a sentence had been added which reads: 'Although it won't look any better than Halo 2.'

Although the edit is time-stamped at 25 April 2007 15:12, just 39 minutes after the original entry was made, it has only recently been discovered that the revision was made by someone at one of Sony's studios.

The detective work was made possible by a Wikipedia scanner invented by an American student which makes it easy to see who is editing entries on the site.

Wikipedia tracked the page edit to the IP address 217.18.23.2, which routes back to Sony Computer Entertainment Europe's studios in Liverpool.

The page has since been restored to its former state and Wikipedia has locked the page from any further edits for the time being.

Halo 3 is due for release in the UK on 26 September, but has already broken the record for the fastest selling game ever, topping one million pre-orders in early August.