If you really want to screw Activision over, but want their games. Buy their games used and after Christmas. GameStop always has a B2G1 free sale the 3 - 4 days after Christmas. Of course this is only for console games. The money you save can go to GOG or to some of the worthy independent developers.

They still get their money though. It's the retailers that take the hit unless they return the s/ware to Activision, only then do Activision's profits take a hit.

Ah, more piracy delays. Brilliant.
I have seen many recent cases where the 360 version of a game was leaked by pirates earlier than the PC version (and I'm talking days, not hours). Sure, in order to run copied 360 games you have to flash the DVD BIOS and thereby void your warranty by opening the system, but after that you can just burn and play (whereas with the PC you need a different crack for each and every game and some games aren't cracked perfectly the first time).

Ah well, thank goodness I'm ordering the 360 Prestige Edition. I don't care if it's on a yucky console.

Piracy is used as a scapegoat too much in the PC gaming industry. If your game sucks and doesn't sell well, there's no need to be yelling "OMGOMGOMGOMG PIRACY".

Irony here is, they yell piracy when a game does really well, and when it sucks badly because apparently, according to these game publishers, everyone torrented Homeland Defense.
Yeah, right.

Now that's comedy. You are right though, there is no way PC users can win at the moment. Even if MW2 is a smash hit selling 1 million in it's first month, Activision will claim they would have sold 3 million if it wasn't for those pesky kids stealing all their stuff.

As was the case with Crysis. I think its sales were more down to the fact that, at the time, nobody could run that bloated, poorly optimised tech demo.
Now Crytek are moving to consoles. I laughed when I read that.
"Ah well, you see, Crysis 2 actually needs a PS4 to run. But Sony haven't released it yet, so we made Crysis 2 for the PS3 instead. I don't see why you have a problem with that."

What gets to me the most is how many people on the consoles will undoubtedly just go and torrent MW2 and burn it on a disc and play it that way, but compared to the hype around PCs being a hotbed of piracy, I have heard little about console piracy. You know, other than the odd R4 news story.

I am fairly sure you don't hear about console piracy because the publishers are told not to talk about it by Microsoft and Sony. It would make both of them look bad as they both boast about how hard it is to pirate on their consoles. The exception is Nintendo who tend to say nothing at all on the issue which I put down to the fact they don't like to goad the hackers. There is nothing that will make a hacker crack a console as fast as hearing a console manufacturer claim their new console is un-hackable.
Also if publishers talked about console piracy it would dilute their one reason for screwing PC owners and we all know how much people like Kotick love to screw PC owners.

mother FUCKERS. God damn it. I want to not buy their products badly, but what I've played of DJ Hero and Modern Warfare 2 makes me really want to get both. GAAAH!

They stagger the PC release to stem piracy, since prospective buyers in the first few weeks will pirate a PC copy as opposed to buying the retail. This has been the trend for years now.

You missed the "used" part I think.

They are idiots as going by people's reactions this staggered release BS will only increase the chance of MW2 being pirated. Bear in mind that the pirate of MW2 will probably be out BEFORE the retail version.
People were expecting a simultaneous release and would probably have not considered piracy. Now Activision have just flipped the finger to those same people and they are looking at getting back at them so...

You are right I did. Mainly because in my country there are no used PC games and I am sure Ireland is not the only example.

This entire news piece stems from one not entirely credible website (Electronic Theatre). They have a tendency to report news from a UK perspective with absolutely no indication the news is for the UK only. I spoke with one of the staff today, he said the release they sourced (and no idea how they are the only ones that got it, assuming they did) did not mention North America at all. So this could be only for the UK come launch time.