"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." In 1887, when the historian Lord Acton reportedly made this statement, not a soul in the world could imagine such a thing as a modern computer hard drive, and the idea of corrupted data was far away. But if a recent report involving the new Japan-only Resident Evil 5 demo is true, then Microsoft just might be able to use their absolute power over your Xbox 360 to corrupt your game files at whim.

According to WorthPlaying, shortly after the Resident Evil 5 demo hit Japanese Xbox LIVE Arcade servers on December 5th, US and European gamer discovered that the demo wasn't exactly limited to the Land of the Rising Sun as reported. With the use of a Japanese XBL gamertag, they were not only able to download, but found -- to their great surprise -- that upon launch, the entire demo was playable in English.

Needless to say, plenty more English-speaking gamers weren't going to pass up the chance for an early crack at Resi 5... and probably also needless to say, those who still advocate region controls at Capcom or Microsoft HQ were none too happy about the influx of foreign download traffic. WorthPlaying reports:

About a day after the demo's release, Xbox Live started doing an IP check before the download could be initiated, preventing anyone outside Japan from downloading a new copy of the demo, even if they used a Japanese gamertag. The demo could still be played however, with all features available, including online co-op play. Because of its small size (less than 480MB) the demo was also easy to copy from system to system.

Then, sometime in the last 24 hours, players with the demo noticed two things. The first was annoying, but understandable. Non-Japanese Gamertags were immediately logged out of Xbox Live when booting up the demo. This prevented anyone outside Japan from playing online. The second issue however has started to raise concern.

After logging in to Xbox Live with a non-Japanese Gamertag and attempting to start the Resident Evil 5 demo, Xbox Live actively corrupts the demo code rendering it completely unplayable – even in offline mode.

"So what?" you might ask. "That's what happens when you're too impatient to wait for the official release." Certainly, this particular incident is of little consequence. We'll get the Resident Evil 5 demo soon enough, and Capcom/Microsoft will be more careful with their IP filtering next time around.

But as WorthPlaying notes, this raises the question of exactly how much power Microsoft has over the machines we've purchased. If someone at Microsoft HQ can simply press a button and turn someone's demo into useless ones and zeros, what is to keep an employee with a grudge from shredding someone's purchased games? If instead, the system is automated (which is far more plausible) what is to keep bug -- or, say, DRM tripwires ostensibly designed to catch pirates -- from indiscriminately but mistakenly doing the same?

Microsoft has yet to respond to the issue, but Capcom told WorthPlaying that they had not requested that such actions be taken, and will be looking into the matter post-haste. "This is the first that Capcom US has heard of the issue. We are looking into it with Microsoft and Capcom Japan and will have an update in 24 hours or less," said Chris Kramer, Senior Director of Communications.

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