This fall, Rockstar will release the second exclusive Grand Theft Auto 4 downloadable episode: The Ballad of Gay Tony. But even though this game will be available only through Xbox Live, and it has the word "gay" real big there in the title, Microsoft still isn"t changing their policy of not allowing XBL users to identify their sexual orientation in their Gamertags or profiles.

At E3 earlier this month, Kotaku"s Stephen Totilo asked John Schappert, corporate vice president of Xbox Live software and services, whether perceptions of a double standard would cause them to change their policy. "I think the two are very separate issues," Schappert answered. "That said, [Xbox Live head of standards enforcement] Stephen [Toulouse] continues to work with our team and we continue to look for ways for people to personally express themselves and you can look for more features coming to Xbox Live, but nothing to announce right now. They"re working on some of that stuff and the community has been very involved. We try to walk the fine line where we do the right thing to allow people to express themselves but not have it be taken overboard."

The issue first came up back in February, when a female XBL member was banned for identifying herself as a lesbian in her profile. Microsoft explained that it was due to a general policy that prohibits members from "creating a gamertag or using text in other profile fields that include comments that look, sound like, stand for, hint at, abbreviate, or insinuate content of a potentially sexual nature." And yes, apparently that includes expressing sexual orientation: "For gamertags or profiles we do not allow expression of any type of orientation, be that hetero or other," a Microsoft statement read.