El Beeb has been fussing over the topic of piracy of TV shows over the internet. "Ohh woe is me," says the TV industry, "for how can I make money with ad-free pirated versions of shows going online mere minutes after broadcast?"

How indeed. It seems that everyone and their cat is loading up torrents of their favourite shows, from geek fests like Battlestar Galactica to general audience pleasers like Desperate Housewives. Lost gets hit up an estimated one million times an episode, which is plenty of eyeballs not glued to their TV's.

The sad fact is that the TV industry can do pretty much nothing to stop this, given their current thinking. Increasingly networks are offering up their shows for download shortly after release, but most, if not all, of those who would previously have said they only download to allow for more convenient scheduling will not be buying these episodes through legitimate channels. The sad fact is that people are stingy, and if you're offered something for nothing without having to physically walk out of a shop with it under your jacket then you'll take it.

Foreign audiences are also accounting for a big proportion of downloads. The UK alone counts for 10 - 15% of the illegal downloads of TV shows. Why? Because these shows won't be broadcast to UK homes for months, and who wants to wait? I recall, many years ago, renting episodes of my favourite TV shows on VHS before they were broadcast, some of the scheduling is that lopsided.

So, what's the solution to this illegal download problem if you can't even sell episodes online? Well, give them away for nothing, duh. Obviously the TV market will always suffer from piracy, because who wants to watch officially sanctioned shows with ads stuck in, but the TV industry can dent the illegal one in a real way.

The industry can throw in shows with ads, perhaps inescapable ones to keep them happy (hey, they need their revenue, which is a paradox some downloader's don't get), and so long as the service is prompt, efficient and simple - just like BitTorrent, say - then the masses will come to ABC.com before TorrentSpy.

Well consummate me pink - Microsoft rolled out Neil Armstrong to Dublin for the launch of Vista. Turns out he's not somebody we'd care to meet twice... Well, insofar as we dealt with him on the day. Chap refused to sign autographs or have photographs released to the press - which kind of begs the question as to what Microsoft was paying his appearance fee for, but how and ever.

Ohh well, at least it's something to tell the grandkids. Other than Armstrong there's not much to report on Vista, except this rollout strategy agreed among engineers, journalists and Microsoft people alike (though not all vocalised): If you're a Small to Medium business owner, you'll get Vista with your next refresh - IE by about H2 2007. If you're a consumer, you're going to get Vista in 2007 largely whether you like it or not, if you're buying an anyway new system. Corporate users won't start rolling out Vista in any major way until at least the end of 2007. Expect to still see corporate users still using XP right the way through '07.

Having been somebody who was still using Windows 2000 until slightly after Service Pack 2 arrived for XP, I don't think I'll be rushing to be an early adopter (Read: Glorified bug tester) for Microsoft.

If there's one thing we learn from major console launches, it is that technology and particularly gaming companies hold their customers in the utmost contempt. Customers are mugs who have money in their pockets, and as far as the gaming industry is concerned it seems to be a crying shame that they actually have to provide you with any product to get it.

Ultimate example: Pre-orders. We've all heard a great deal about these over the past couple of months - "PS3 Pre-orders sell out in seven minutes", "Pre- orders being sold on eBay" and so forth. Really and truly however, pre-orders should be renamed "Non-statuatory expressions of interest and tokens of false hope."

When Nintendo launched the Wii here in Europe yesterday there were many people with pre-orders who have been told that they're not going to get their orders by Christmas; though, paradoxically, any games they may have pre-ordered are now in the post while gamers who did manage to secure a Wii are scouring the country for extra supplies of actual software. We could, quite amusingly, now see games rather than consoles going on-sale on eBay.

One woman who spoke to the Beeb put it quite well: "I pre-ordered the console in November from Woolworths website for my son's Christmas present.

"I received an e-mail today informing me that as Nintendo had not shipped enough I might not receive my order.

"So the fact that I had the foresight to pre-order and not disappoint my son means very little as they obviously expect me to camp outside Woolworths for days on end."

Precisely. A pre-order is not a promise that you'll receive a console - indeed, a pre-order isn't for your benefit. It's something for the sales folk to smile about and send out press releases on the back of, while it's the guys and gals who freeze their nuts and other assorted pieces of fruit off in the December nights camping outside of HMV who get the units. Nobody wins, really, except the people selling the consoles: They know that 9/10 disappointed pre- orderers will pick up the console at a later date.

This might seem like a crazy idea, but how about we make pre-orders stick? That is, if you pre-order in the allotted amount of time, you get a unit. Crazy idea, huh? No camping outside of HMV, on top of your pre-order, and no disappointments at Christmas for those with foresight.

Fat chance, but a nice idea. One day, the consumer will be king. For now, he's just a walking, talking wallet.

I had an interesting conversation the other day about drugs and pro gaming with Liquilife and Vicious at UncleGamer.com. In case you're not familiar, UncleGamer Radio does a weekly podcast devoted to gaming. Well, Liquilife and Vicious caught the recent TwitchGuru story about the Cyberathlete Professional League making preparations for drug testing at its events next year.

If you missed it, the CPL will require all participating players in 2007 to consent to a potential drug test. CPL founder and president Angel Munoz told me he doesn't think the use of performance-enhancing drugs in CPL competitions is an issue yet, but he wants to be proactive before cheating via drugs becomes a problem. And with hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake - not to mention fame - Munoz and others in pro gaming have no doubt that people will use drugs to get an edge, if they haven't already.

Liquilife, Vicious and I chatted about everything from gamers taking Ritalin to NHL hockey players taking Sudafed and how the allure of money-making competitions in sports will always lead to cheating in some way or another. We also chatted about favorite games, the best consoles, and why I'm not a big fan of Halo or the Call of Duty sequels. Good stuff.

If you haven't tuned into to UncleGamer Radio already, here's a good interview with a guy who literally broke his knee while playing Guitar Hero.

KHAAAAAAAAN!!!

Good grief. I had been looking forward to Star Trek: Legacy for quite some time, and for a few reasons. First, Star Trek has sucked lately. And second, I love a good strategy game. And third, I needed a really good Star Trek game to come along. So I was pretty pleased when Bethesda Softworks announced that all five actors that played Star Trek captains in the television series would be lending their voices to the game. Even better was the news that longtime Trek writer Dorothy "D.C" Fontana and writing partner Derek Chester had penned the script for Star Trek: Legacy.

So I was pumped for some good Trek. And then after the PC version of Star Trek: Legacy was released a week ago, poor reviews and seriously negative user comments started popping up everywhere about poor control systems and highly flawed game design from Mad Doc Software. Well, at least I had the Xbox 360 version to look forward to, which was released yesterday and has fared much better in its initial reviews and feedback than its PC counterpart.

Well, that got photon-torpedoed pretty quickly: news broke yesterday via Xbox360fanboy.com that story for Star Trek: Legacy had been cut significantly from the proposed script provided by Fontana and Chester. In fact, the information came directly from Chester himself, who weighed in on the game via the Bethesda Star Trek forum. Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the Mutara Nebula, another weak Trek game comes along. Seriously, just stick a Ceti Eel in my ear and get it over with.

Here's what Chester said on the forum: "A lot of what was intended was cut. From rendered cinematics and interstitial cutscenes to a great deal of backstory and events that took place between the eras to tie them together. The total portrayal of the intended story was incomplete. Dorothy and I wrote a lot for this game...but not everything made it in. As a result there may be some difficulty in following the motivations for characters or the reasons for crucial events. The story as was written, tied together a great deal of Trek history and events to make it seem more substantial than it came across in the final game."

Well, double-dumbass on Bethesda!

The good news: Sega just recently announced a major deal with Twentieth Century Fox to make not one but multiple next-generation games based on the "Alien" movie series. One of the titles will be a first-person shooter in the vein of Aliens Versus Predator game franchise. Another title will be a role-playing game. Interesting.

The bad news? Well, the first game is at least a few years away and probably won't see the light of day until 2009 (scheduled formats are the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360). And let's be honest - the Alien movie series is pretty much dead. The last two "Alien" movies were bombs, and the recent "Alien Versus Predator" movie was weak sauce.

Still, this announcement has me excited for a few reasons. First, Alien Versus Predator 2 is one of the most exciting and scariest FPS titles I've ever played, and we need more "Alien" titles like it. Second, Obsidian Entertainment has been confirmed for the RPG Alien game, and they've done a pretty good job with its first two games, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II and Neverwinter Nights 2. There's speculation that Gearbox Software will helm the FPS title, and again, the developer has a pretty nice pedigree with such games as the Brothers in Arms series.

I'm just really, really hoping that another publisher/developer doesn't make a game that tarnishes below franchise (see below post on Star Trek). Because if these two games turn out to be crap, I'm going to be feeling like Drake after getting hit with Xenomorph blood: burned.

Microsoft has just announced that Epic's action title Gears of War has sold 2 million copies (one of which I own) in about six weeks. As a result, Gears is the first mega- hit for the next-generation consoles. Not only has the game sold plenty of copies, but the game has also been a hit with critics who have lauded Epic's eye-popping design and graphics. In addition, Gears is doing crazy business on Xbox Live and finally unseated Halo 2 as the most played game for Microsoft's online network. Will Gears of War help push the Xbox 360 to 10 million units sold by January 1st? We'll see.

And wouldn't you know, Epic is hard at work on sequels to Gears of War. This is a good thing because the enjoyable single player campaign came off like an example of episodic gaming: brief content that's part of a larger story. Indeed, there are plenty of details that were left unexplained in Gears of War, such as Marcus Fenix's backstory, the Locust Horde's origin, and the identity of the spooky female voice-over at the end of the game.

While I think Gears is a tad overrated at this point, it was well worth the money spent and has been the best example yet of the next-gen consoles' potential. And even though I got totally annoyed by NPC Augustus "Cole Train" Cole, I'm pretty excited about a Gears sequel. If Epic can add some new elements to the already enticing game play, expand the single player campaign and then fill in the story, then GoW 2 will be even better than the original.

It's officially Day 2 of the Cyberathlete Professional League Championship Finals in Dallas, and there's quite bit going on. After the preliminary rounds on Sunday, the action ramped up today as some of the top teams and players faced off in the pro tournaments for Quake 3 and Counter-Strike. One of the bigger matches of the day involved a major upset, as U.S. team Turmoil scored a huge comeback victory over the heavily favored Team 3D this morning. Gotfrag.com has more coverage on the match here, as well as live coverage of Quake and Counter-Strike matches on GotFrag.com.

Turmoil was later defeated by another U.S. team, Revolution Sports, which scored a remarkable comeback victory in one of the best matches of the day. "We were losing really badly but we had a big comeback," said Joshua Springer, a player on Revolution Sports. Springer's teammate Ted Weinrich said the Turmoil contest "was a really intense match." In other matches this afternoon, top Swedish team SK Gaming dominated by handily defeating several teams.

Some of the top teams in Counter-Strike will face off tonight. Team 3D, Swedish powerhouse Fnatic, and Team 3D's American rival Complexity will battle for supremacy tonight in late round action.

In other news, I'm really getting into this whole professional gaming thing.

I now know what a classic e-sports match is all about, thanks to Counter-Strike teams Complexity and 3D. Arguably the two best pro teams in America, Complexity and 3D have a unique rivalry in professional gaming. According to GotFrag.com, 3D has more career victories but Complexity owns the edge in head-to-head matches, 28-15.

Monday night's match had a considerable amount of hype around it, not only because it was the 44th time these two rivals would face each other but also because the match was a must-win contest for each team to move on. The match began and it was neck and neck for while, but eventually 3D pulled out to a small lead. However, Complexity battled back to tie the score. The game remained deadlocked late in the second half until regulation play ended with both teams tied at 15 (each Counter-Strike match is one 15-round map split into halves).

That led to one of the greatest things in sports: overtime. I thought the competition was intense during regulation, but that was nothing compared to the pressure and fast-paced action of OT (which is two three-round halves). At first, 3D was trailing but the team stormed back, led by its best player Mikey "Method" So, to tie the match and force a second overtime. Then 3D had Complexity on its heels, but the team made a number of cunning moves to even the odds and force yet another overtime.

And that was the essence of this classic duel: just when you thought the match was about to end, some unexpected happened. Players made brilliant, improbable plays that no one saw coming, whether it was a ridiculously long range AWP shot, a heart-pounding rush against superior manpower, or an ingenious ambush. Somehow, the tables always seemed to turn back and forth between Complexity and 3D.

I've seen Counter-Strike played before, but not like this. I was lucky enough to watch overtime with Lee Chen, president of GotFrag.com, who's seen his share of professional gaming matches, and even he was blown away by this epic battle. If there was any doubt in my mind that pro gamers were real athletes, it was all but erased by the virtuoso performances by all 10 players involved in the match.

The only bad thing about the Complexity-3D match was that it had to end eventually. And sadly, it did after three hard-fought overtimes. The final OT was neck and neck until Complexity was able to eek out a narrow margin of victory. But the match won't soon be forgotten by those who saw it, and all who participated in the match should be proud of it. The Complexity-3D match was an instant classic. And it sure beat the hell out of Monday Night Football.

Uh-oh. I can hear the grumbles and moans already.

Valve and IGA Worldwide announced a deal this week that will place in-game advertising within Valve's Counter-Strike. The deal gives IGA exclusive access to Counter-Strike, which has millions of users and generates more than five billion player minutes a month, according to IGA. As for Valve, the IGA agreement will give the developer another revenue stream coming off the plentiful river that is Counter-Strike.

"As the world's premier online action game, Counter-Strike's player minutes exceed its closest competitor by more than 100 percent," said Doug Lombardi, Director of Marketing for Valve, in the press statement. "Additionally, Counter- Strike rivals many of the current top ten watched shows on American televisions. For instance, a top ranked, one hour, weekly program garners 20 million viewers and results in approximately 4.8 billion viewer minutes per month. Conversely, Counter-Strike generates over 5 billion player minutes in the same period of time. And, nobody fast-forwards through any part of Counter-Strike."

That is true - nobody fast-forwards through a game. But will gamers be turned off when they dive for cover behind some crates and see "Pottery Barn" or "Pepsi" pasted on the boxes? Will Counter-Strike be the same with huge billboards looming in the mountains? There's no word on where the ads will go or what brands will seek to subliminally dominate online gamers, but Valve can certainly expect that some gamers will accuse them of selling out.

As for IGA and in-game advertising, this is huge (for more in IGA, go here). First, snagging Counter-Strike gives the company the golden goose of non-MMORGP gaming. Second, it helps IGA raise its profile among other in-game advertising firm's such as Microsoft's Massive, Inc. And third, Counter-Strike represents arguably the biggest accomplishment yet for the growing in-game ad business. If it works on Counter-Strike, then will we see advertising in - gulp - Half-Life?

Ugh. I just choked on my on vomit...

The CPL Championship Finals match for Counter-Strike came down to Sweden versus Norway. Swedish powerhouse team Fnatic and Meet Your Makers, a rising star from Norway, faced off this afternoon in Dallas, with Fnatic scoring a decisive victory for the championship title. Both teams stormed through semifinal competition on Tuesday, beating other contenders such as France's Against All Authority and Pentagram G-Shock from Poland. But Fnatic, which had emerged as an early favorite for the Counter-Strike title with superior play throughout the tournament, swept MYM in two rounds, led by Patrik "F0rest" Lindberg in the first half and Harley "dsn" ﾖrwall in the second half.

The match didn't quite live up to early contests, such as the classic duel between Complexity and 3D, and didn't appear to draw as big a crowd at the CPL event. However, I'm pretty sure Fnatic didn't care; they won the title and walked away with $30,000. Plus, Fnatic team member Kristoffer "Tentpole" Nordlund announced he was retiring after the CPL Championship, so he gets to go out on top.

In other CPL Championship news, Paul "CZM" Nelson won the Quake 3 tournament and the $15,000 prize, defeating Fan "Jibo" Zhibo. But the best game of the Quake 3 tournament came earlier when Nelson faced off against top-ranked Quake player Anton "Cooller" Singov of Russia. Singov had beaten Nelson at an international Quake competition at the Electronic Sports World Cup last year. Nelson was trailing 13-2 in the third map of the contest but staged an improbable comeback, winning the map and the title. There's been some controversy at the CPL over the "group play" double-elimination tournament format, which has apparently favored upsets and put certain teams such as Complexity at a disadvantage.

To me, the group play tournament style is much like the NCAA college basketball tournament, which I have no problem with because it encourages upsets and unpredictable matches. Some teams will have an easier road than others, just like March Madness, but almost always the two best teams will rise to the top. To me, that's what has happened with the Counter-Strike finals. Fnatic and MyM are two of the best teams around, and they played at a superior level during this tournament. It was disappointing to see both 3D and Complexity go out early after such a memorable match on Monday, but those are the breaks of the game. All in all, the Counter-Strike competition featured some great competition and plenty of thrills. I supposed I couldn't ask for anything more for my first pro gaming experience.

For more on the CPL Finals, check out GotFrag.com's coverage, including video replays of the matches.