Microsoft seems to be going through a weird period. First, it announced that, for two weeks, the Xbox 360 Elite, which is at the moment retailing for the lowered price of 299 dollars, was set to receive a 50-dollar rebate between September 22 and October 5. And, now, the company has set the price for the Sergeant Johnson DLC for Halo 3: ODST at 99.999 Microsoft Points, which is probably the biggest sum ever charged for something on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

The description for the downlodable content says that, “Sergeant Avery Junior Johnson is a tough as nails career Marine that has been in more life or death battles than you've had hot meals. He has survived more infectious Flood outbreaks, greased more Covenant bad guys, and in general kicked more alien ass than any twenty other Marines. Now you get to walk a mile in his shoes. If you enlisted early by pre-ordering your copy of Halo 3: ODST at select retailers, redeem your code to unlock Sgt. Johnson for use in Firefight.” Sure, he is one great fighter and a nice addition to any game, but players get only a character for the equivalent of 1,200 real-life, United States dollars.

Microsoft probably set the high price as a way of pointing out the value of pre-orders for games. Sergeant Johnson could be obtained by committing to picking up Halo 3: ODST before the date on which it would be originally released. Still, it is a pretty weird way to make a point on Microsoft's part.

The real, exciting thing would be for the publisher to actually show off sale records for DLC on Xbox Live Marketplace, so that we can see whether there are any gamers out there who are interested in paying the 99.999 Microsoft Points needed to obtain the content of the Sergeant Johnson DLC.