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.

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