Xbox exclusive documentary about buried Atari cartridges put on hold

The New Mexico Environment Department has rejected an excavation plan from a documentary crew hoping to unearth thousands of copies of E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial for the Atari 2600 in a landfill where they are rumored to be buried.

Alamogordo city commissioners approved the search in June, but state environmental officials have to approve a waste excavation plan before digging can begin. The Alamogordo Daily News reports that the Solid Waste and Ground Water Bureau staff rejected the plan because it was too “generic,” and noted many items that needed to be addressed or clarified before it could approve the plan.

The two companies producing the documentary, Fuel Entertainment and Lightbox Interactive, have yet to submit a revised plan, but according to the Associated Press, a Lightbox producer said that the search hasn’t been halted.

Lightbox and Fuel Entertainment will release the film exclusively on Xbox in 2014 as part of Xbox Entertainment Studios’ documentary series.

E.T. was released in December 1982 for the Atari 2600, with millions of copies produced under the assumption that the link to the hit Steven Spielberg movie would guarantee sales success. The failure of the game is believed to be one of the main contributing factors to 1983's crash of the video game industry.