The blitzing of the Halo Wars leaderboards and stats from Xbox Live earlier this week doesn't apparently indicate wider issues with Microsoft's systems - unless, that is, its human resources department needs a strong talking to.

Says Major Nelson, "This was human error related to Xbox LIVE servers. It is not a broader service issue and will not impact other titles or Xbox LIVE experiences. The Xbox LIVE team is investigating the cause to prevent this from occurring in the future."

It doesn't look as if the stats ('all singleplayer, multiplayer and Trueskill leaderboards') will be coming back either:

"I’d like to apologize for the incident and any frustration Halo Wars players have experienced in having their statistics disappear from the Leaderboards. You can rest assured that we’re putting processes in place to prevent this from happening in the future", says the Major.