PSA: You [probably] won't be banned for playing MW3 early - we think

At this point, you'd be forgiven for not knowing up from down with regards to early copies of next week's Modern Warfare 3. Is it safe to play online? Will you be banned? Where could you even find a copy of Modern Warfare 3 early?

We can't blame you. Even we haven't even been sure – after some vaguely foreboding comments from Xbox Live's Stephen Toulouse earlier today, we felt compelled to warn you all that maybe, just maybe you should put that $1700, three-day early copy of Modern Warfare 3 on the shelf until Tuesday. But, in the event your neck isn't sore from all the back and forth over the last 36 hours, we've got the final definitive word from Activision itself... we hope:

"We value and appreciate the community's support. We have no interest in banning legitimate copies in these last few days. We just ask for everyone to wait for Tuesday when everybody can play the game together."

So, we guess you can play Modern Warfare 3 – assuming you've committed the dark retail magic necessary to acquire it early that it. Us? We'll be over here in the corner, where we don't have to look right or left for a while.