Arstechnica reports that Microsoft is temporarily banning players that exploit what they’re calling a glitch but to me looks like a tactic. Basically if you hold a grenade then equip the javelin when you are killed the grenade goes off turning you in to a suicide bomber.

“While IW works on getting the MW2 glitch fixed, people we catch using it will recieve suspensions from LIVE. Play fair everyone,” Toulouse said via Twitter. He also noted that this policy isn’t anything new, and that it’s in place for more games than just Modern Warfare 2. If you get caught taking advantage of the exploit, you’ll be banned for 24 hours. If you’re a particularly bad case, the banning could last up to two weeks.

The ban isn’t for Modern Warfare 2, it’s for the entirety of Xbox Live. If you’re banned, no new content for you. No playing online… in anything. Major Nelson posted the details on his blog: “Keep in mind, this isn’t just a ban on a particular game. This is a ban on the Xbox Live service as a whole, so you won’t be able to go online at all during your ban. Initially, you may be banned for a day, a week, or depending on severity, permanently! Kiss that $50 goodbye,” he wrote.

Check out their article for more details.

Not so fun if you’re bombed but banning seems harsh and unnecessary to me. The game’s incredibly popular and I doubt this is having a big impact on its playability. Isn’t this kind of creativity the heart of emergent gamplay? It’s entirely within the rights of the developers to patch the game to prevent it, but I say until then if you can do it in the game world without code/hardware modification then it’s fair play.