EA release Euro 2000 Qualifying Memories, a football game using the FIFA engine. It goes straight to Number One. Vis Interactive announce that the ill-received pre-Christmas release of Earthworm Jim 3D was "an administrative error", and immediately withdraw the game from sale in order to delay it for another 18 months. Virgin attract controversy with a new and graphically-illustrated ad campaign proclaiming "Buy This Game Or We’ll Come Round To Your House With A Baseball Bat And Fuck Your Grandma - Up The Arse." Later, they bow to public pressure and asterisk out the "s" in "Arse".

FEBRUARY

ELSPA’s Roger Bennett is arrested by police for funding the industry’s new charity organisation by stealing collecting tins from Salvation Army workers and mugging destitute tramps. Chris Evans announces his conversion to the Mormon faith and his engagement to all three of the Bits girls. 16 different officially-licenced Formula 1 titles are released on the same day, by 12 different publishers. An investigation by BBC TV’s Watchdog programme, however, conclusively proves that they’re all exactly the same game. Riding a wave of speculative investment from the French stock market, Titus buys Acclaim, Activision, Bullfrog and Codemasters. The company’s procession of aggressive acquisitions is only stopped when someone tears out all the pages after "C" in their ELSPA Yearbook.

MARCH

Playstation 2 is released in Japan. After no Dreamcasts whatsoever are sold during the entire month, Sega announce that they’re closing all their offices worldwide, "Going on a picnic for the summer" and will never release another console. The company’s shares soar by 75%. Chris Evans publicly dumps the Bits girls and announces his conversion to cartoon form and engagement to Namco’s imaginary Ridge Racer mascot Reiko Nagase. Hasbro reach a landmark, releasing their 100^th very slightly different CD-ROM version of Monopoly. Sony announce a crackdown on grey-import PS2s, declaring their intention to sue anyone who buys one.

APRIL

Future announce first-quarter profits of £17.22 - the City goes wild, sending the company’s share price rocketing to £500. Titus buys Hasbro early one morning while the French stock market is still in bed. In games news, System 3 continue their passionate crusade against the "stifling of creativity". Following the release of Playstation fighting games Guilty Gear and Toshinden 4 and the imminent delivery of Last Ninja: The Return, MD Mark Cale announce plans for two further "strong, innovative, original titles" – a racing sim and a football game. In an unconnected incident, a deranged lunatic takes an automatic rifle and goes on a horrific killing spree in a hospital maternity ward in Leicester, shooting 47 people dead. Eidos and SCi embark on a bidding war for the licence rights.

MAY

EA release Rod Stewart Celebrity Kickabout, a football game using the FIFA engine. It goes straight to Number One. THE reduce the price of the N64 to 50p, but only one game appears on the year’s release schedule - Cruisin’ West Sussex, an arcade-style racer which comes bundled with a Ford Fiesta and costs £7,995. The Daily Mirror gives away a Playstation to every reader on the collection of five tokens from the paper. Sony deny allegations that the format is being devalued, pointing out that one of the tokens has to come from the more expensive Sunday edition. Due to an administrative error, Ubi Soft buys itself for $12 billion and immediately goes bust.

JUNE

EA release UEFA (Not FIFA, No Way) Euro 2000, a football game using the FIFA engine. It goes straight to Number One. As the continuing Playstation price war forces the price of PS software down even further, Sony announce a drastic cut in dealer prices, raising margins to record high levels. CTW is deluged with angry complaints from independent retailers, irate at being forced to employ extra staff to take the wheelbarrows full of money to the bank.

JULY

Sony award the Official Playstation 2 Magazine contract to Dennis. The City goes wild, sending Future’s share price rocketing to £1000. EA release Pre-Season Friendly Soccer, a football game using the FIFA engine. It goes straight to Number One. The French feeding frenzy continues as Infogrames buys Titus, for a bet. Nothing else happens, because nothing else ever does in July.

AUGUST

EA release The Official FA Charity Shield Experience, a football game using the FIFA engine. It goes straight to Number One. 3dfx announce the Voodoo 7, which is a Playstation 2 with the case sawn off. It costs £900. Sony sues Dennis on several counts of industrial espionage, after the company prints a number of official Sony press releases in Official Playstation 2 Magazine’s news pages. After an unusually heavy bout of pie-eating in the DMA Design offices one lunchtime, Gary Penn bursts. In the aftermath of the explosion, the whole East Coast of Scotland is declared a disaster area, wiping out the entire Scottish development community and causing the release of Vis Interactive’s latest game to be put back for four years. The company’s share price is unaffected.

SEPTEMBER

EA release Konica League Of Wales Super Penalty Shoot-Out Kings, a football game using the FIFA engine. It goes straight to Number One. Sony announce their intention to retrospectively sue the makers of defunct children’s television programme "Play School", as the word "Play", the initials "PS" and the show’s famous round and square windows all infringe on Playstation copyrights. Infogrames buys Microsoft. Windows now comes with a non-removable desktop background picture of Bruno Bonnell (who has recently grown a thick, bushy moustache and now insists on being known only as "BB") with eyes which follow your mouse movements around the screen. In desperation, Chris Evans announces his engagement to Trip Hawkins. ECTS happens as usual, with one difference - absolutely no games are shown. Attendance figures rise by 80% as everyone gets to spend a whole weekend away from their families stuffing their faces with food and booze and staring down the cleavage of bored models without all that tedious mucking around "demonstrating" "product".

OCTOBER

An unexploded atomic bomb left behind in 1944 by a secret Luftwaffe mission goes off in central Bath, instantaneously vaporising most of Future’s offices and killing all but 4 of the firm’s staff (two cleaners, a work-experience kid on PC Answers and the sandwich man) in a cataclysmic firestorm that razes the entire town to the ground. The City goes wild, sending the company’s share price rocketing to £23,758. EA release International Three And In, a football game using the FIFA engine. It goes straight to Number One.

NOVEMBER

Coming in drunk from a late lunch one afternoon, EA release Gary Glitter’s Heroin-Shooting Football. The game is a 2D platformer with no football in it at all which runs exclusively on the ZX Spectrum and costs £85, but it goes straight to Number One anyway. Infogrames buys Take 2 Interactive, Eidos, Lucasfilm, Disney and Asia. The new super-company announces that its entire resources will be concentrated on a single game, combining all of its biggest intellectual properties. Due to the firm’s millions-strong army of slave labour, the game is completed from conceptualisation to ship-out in three weeks. Sony announce that the Playstation 2 will be launched in Europe with Gran Turismo 3, a racing game so realistic that it refuses to load on cold mornings. In a stunning and unexpected revelation that leaves the entire industry reeling in disbelieving astonishment, Nintendo announce that the Dolphin won’t be out in time for Christmas after all. Shocked journalists and software company representatives are treated by St John’s Ambulance staff for several hours following the press conference.

DECEMBER