Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb has just come clean regarding a recent blog post where he claimed that Halo: Reach came in third in the latest batch of Xbox LIVE activity stats behind both Modern Warfare 2 and Halo 3. It turns out the stats were bungled, and while Modern Warfare 2 still managed to best it, Halo: Reach was indeed played more than Halo 3 in its launch week.

His initial blog (which has now been amended) has caused a number of gaming news outlets, including IGN, to report the surprising result, but Mr Hryb has now admitted via Twitter and a new blog post that he made an error. "Yesterday I posted the TOP LIVE Activity list, which I have since learned contained a manual error in the reporting data for the week of September 11th," he writes.

Although it didn't manage to topple the mighty Modern Warfare 2 in the latest stats, Hryb adds that Halo: Reach was "the number one game on Xbox LIVE for the past seven days and had nearly four times as many unique users playing the game on Xbox LIVE vs. Halo 3 for the week of September 13", which was the week Halo: Reach launched.

"Now, once I finish the Reach campaign, anyone know of some good Excel classes I can take" joked Hryb.