Another year, another Christmas. Another panicked look at the calendar, another rushed purchase of After Eights from the petrol station - the end of 2019 is almost upon us. It's been a strange year, simultaneously momentous and, paradoxically, underwhelming.

Much has Happened, when you really dig down, but the biggest announcements arrived in unconventional ways at unfamiliar times. And, for much of the year, it’s felt like the wider game industry engine has been ticking over, patiently - but hungrily - awaiting the injection of new fuel in the form of Sony’s PlayStation 5 and Microsoft’s Xbox Series X.

Unfortunately that, at times, has meant we've been running on fumes. Has this metaphor been stretched too far yet? No? Okay, let's race onwards towards February. (No game industry news happened in January. Literally nothing. Look it up, there's nothing there. Google returns 0 results and Bing just gives that 'Windows XP has crashed' DUNG sound.)