This friday night, at 9pm, Sky Arts and Sky Arts HD will, for the first time in the UK, be broadcasting a live recording of Video Games Live - the show that takes video game music, old and new, and turns it into an orchestral masterpiece. 

The show's been running for almost a decade now, and has played hundreds of locations around the world (including within the UK), but this is the first time anyone has broadcast the show on UK television. The show was devised by two very successful video game composers, Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall, who have, independently, to their names the scores for games like Earthworm Jim, Prince of Persia, Mass Effect and Splinter Cell (two of those each, respectively). Each show features a different variety of music, but this show - filmed at the Lakefront Arena in New Orleans features music from Mario, Zelda, Sonic, Castlevania, Halo, Warcraft, God Of War and Civilisation among others. 

As someone who was lucky enough to see the show live in London a few years ago, I can definitely recommend catching the show yourself while you've got the chance. They typically only play one or two dates in the UK a year, so it can be difficult to get to see them live, but the next best thing would be to catch the broadcast tomorrow night. 

The show is also repeated on Saturday morning at 7am - but you'll probably be best just TiVoing or Sky Plusing the show on Friday if you can't catch it live. Sky Arts is on Sky Channel 129 and Virgin Media channels 281 and 282 (HD) and the show begins at 9pm. 

This year’s E3 is a little over a week away, and if - like me - you’re in the UK, you even get the added bonus of two days off just to watch the conferences! (Or something about an 80s rock band crossing over with that annoying kid in the April O’Neil coat from the X-Men or whatever.)

Each year I draw up a little list of what I, as someone who studies and analyses the industry at any free opportunity, envisage we’ll be seeing at this year’s party - and just as importantly - what we won’t. Obviously, since I can’t actually divine the future, this isn’t likely to be 100%, but some educated guesses based on rumours, leaks, previously confirmed statements and patterns have gone into what I’d consider a likely set of outcomes.

We’ll go in order of the conferences as they take place, focusing just on the ‘Big Three’ of Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.