Modern Warfare 2 glitch unlocks five SNK XBLA games

In a stroke of exceptionally bad luck for SNK, a glitch has been discovered that unlocks free access to the full versions of five of the publisher's XBLA games for users who already have the demos on their hard drives. To make it worse, the glitch occurs within Modern Warfare 2 (a game that bajillons of Xbox 360 owners already have) -- or its recent demo (which is freely available).

Somehow, running Modern Warfare 2 coincidentally fools the system into thinking it's authorized to temporarily unlock full versions of Garou: Mark of the Wolves, The King of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match, Metal Slug 3, Metal Slug XX, and Samurai Shodown II. Joystiq tested the exploit with Garou and KOF '98, and can verify that it works. For now, at least.

We're certain this issue will be patched by one of the three affected parties -- SNK Playmore, Activision, or Microsoft -- in the near future, now that it's known. In the meantime, just because you can get these games for free doesn't mean you aren't a major jerk for doing so.

[Note: This doesn't permanently unlock the games; only if you launch them directly from inside MW2. If you launch from the Dashboard, they'll behave just like plain ol' trial games.]