Since the release of the Xbox 360, Microsoft has touted the machine as more than a gaming console and preferred to describe it as a complete media center where Xbox Live subscribers could purchase music, feature length films, television shows, arcade & mini games and recently, stream their netflix rentals. But while Xbox possesses a mighty user community of 20 million worldwide, it’s suffered from an absence of original programming that is essential when competing with the likes of apple’s iTunes.

That all changes with the debut of Con Trek, a magazine-style web show that delves deep into the strange and glorious world of fan conventions. That’s right, the kind of coverage you’d expect from a professional sport’s league draft except all about Cons that feature geek news, interviews and hundreds of beautiful Summer Glau caliber women dressed in Slave Leia costumes.

And because this is Xbox Live, you can even get it in High Definition.

The first episode of the series, which premiered this last week, features interviews with Nichelle Nichols (Star Trek, Heroes) and Dana Snyder (Aqua Teen Hunger Force), Steve Niles (30 Days of Night), along with a glimpse of Dragon*Con’s amazing costume contests, drunken debauchery, scantly clad women, aisles and aisles of dealers selling collectibles and items from all over the world and much more.

Con Trek is hosted by Alan Smith, a geekier Kevin Pereira who also produces his own independent comic book and n00b apologist Brittney Eskew who has an uncanny ability to make geeks form coherent sentences in the presence of an attractive female — not an easy task. The two will travel across the country in their pursuit of conventions both popular and obscure.

“We’re very focused on covering the kind of news that you wouldn’t necessarily find from big media,” said Con Geek Producer Stephen Lackey of film/television production company Captain Pixel Productions. Coverage will include traditional conventions like Hero Con, but also go off the usual path to Anime Conventions and even Lebowski Fest (a celebration of the movie The Big Lebowski) in Louisville, Kentucky.

Since Microsoft uses credits instead of actual money, each show will cost the equivalent of about $3 for Hi-def and $2 for standard definition. One show will debut per month under the GamerTV channel on the Xbox Live Video Marketplace as an exclusive to the Xbox 360.

For more information about the show visit the Xbox 360 Live Marketplace Show page.

Con Trek Preview (Courtesy of Cine Geek):