Square

Square Enix has appeared in two of Microsoft's most recent pre-E3 press conferences: last year at E3 2008 and at E3 2005. Considering the kind of moves MS is making in trying to secure third-party exclusives we're expecting some kind of Square-related announcement, but getting FFXIII as a timed exclusive in the West seems a tad ambitious even for a company of its size. What's more likely is some timed exclusive DLC for the Xbox 360 version of Final Fantasy XIII and a new game that is only confirmed to be coming to Microsoft's platform - most likely appearing on PS3 at a later date.

Halo stuff

It's the big one. Halo is likely to play a pretty major part in Microsoft's pre-E3 conference, especially as Gears of War hogged the limelight last year. Halo: ODST is a dead-cert, with an on-stage demo being our bet. We're also hopeful that we'll finally see something on the Peter Jackson Halo project, Halo Chronicles, and news on Halo 4 - perhaps with a shocking developer revelation. Not directly Halo related, but Bungie has been hard at work on a new game for some time now, so who knows… maybe E3 2009 will be the place to reveal the non-Halo game it's working on.