Fallout 3 isn't launching until Oct. 28, but the highly anticipated sequel has already been leaked and has found its way on to torrent sites. And the most surprising aspect is that the leaked build isn't the PC version of Fallout 3 but the Xbox 360 version.

Here's what we know so far. Sometime on Wednesday October 8th, an image of Fallout 3 made its way to a public torrent site via a release group called "Seed4ME," which may have only formed weeks ago and has only released Xbox 360 games. Since September, the Seed4ME group has been responsible for leaked versions of Fracture, Saints Row 2, NBA 2K9, Blitz: The League II, and now Fallout 3. Once the Seed4ME release was made available, two other release groups attempted to release the Seed4ME image as their own, which further increased the distribution of the game outside of the original torrent site. With three separate groups distributing the leaked version of Fallout 3, the availability of the leaked image has gone through the roof as several other more public torrent sites and newsgroups have since gained their own copy of the build.

While we were investigating the Fallout 3 leak in more depth on both forums and IRC (Inter Relay Chat), we found two specific users who chose to post pictures of their television screens while they were playing a leaked build of Fallout 3. One channel user in particular offered to take pictures for us as evidence that the leak was legit, despite knowing that we were investigating the matter with intent to report on it. The user offered us a picture of both the credits screen, and of a Live achievement, each of which we were more confident couldn't be faked as easily as a gameplay picture.

Some gamers who downloaded the leaked version of Fallout 3 posted pictures and videos of the game, boasting their accomplishments.

When we asked the user and others in the channel why they pirated console games, they responded that the Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, PSP, and DS were extremely easy to get free games for once a console was modified or firmware hacked. One user even argued that once a console was modified, it was actually easier to attain and play pirate copies of games than on the PC. "The PC always has evolving DRM, and usually requires people to copy cracks" the source told us. "Each new release of SecuROM also blacklists tools like Alcohol 120% and Daemon Tools most of the time too." [Editor's Note: the PC version of Fallout 3 does not come with SecuROM] In the case of the notorious Starforce PC protection scheme, users were going as far as unplugging their CD-ROM drives to play pirate games. Such measures are not needed on the consoles, nor is there any sort of authentication system similar to that seen in the latest versions of SecuROM.

More pictures of the leaked version of Fallout 3 for the Xbox 360.

We found that discussion on the release sites and chat rooms all seemed to point to a common theme: pirates are definitely out in full force in the console world. There are already several sites have unauthorized screenshots posted on them, along with videos as well. Several live video feeds with live Fallout 3 footage have also popped up, some of which are already offline. As we saw with other high profile games that leaked early such as Grand Theft Auto 4 and Halo 3, there is no doubt this is just the beginning.

When we contacted Bethesda Software about the matter, Pete Hines responded "We're looking into it. Since we haven't sent out a single disc, it greatly reduces the number of places this might have come from." Time will tell if the version that leaked was an older build from Bethesda or retail copy that may have been swiped from a manufacturing plant. It's unknown on whether or not the leaked version is the final code for Fallout 3.

Stay tuned for more Fallout 3 news on Tom's Games.

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