Increasingly, high-profile music stars are using games as a way of premiering new material. For example, Robbie Williams included a new track in EA's FIFA 2000. How does Miles see this trend evolving?

"I can see music being used to promote a game in the same way that the Puff Daddy/Jimmy Page track became synonymous with the Godzilla film," he asserts. "Obviously, at the moment, the vogue is towards club music, particularly because a lot of gamers are also clubbers and for most of the adrenaline pumping games it works really well."

But is dance music - or pop and rock - always the best choice for a game soundtrack? Surprisingly, Miles doesn't think so.

"I think you'll find over the next couple of years that things will change dramatically with in-game music. Expect orchestral scores mixed in with commercial hits, just like the film world."

However, as games increase in complexity, they increasingly allow the players to take direct control over the soundtrack. Although not technically a game, Codemasters' Music was the first PlayStation title to give players a chance to compose their own ditties. Music 2000 boasts a greater level of complexity and even features a Jam mode, where four players can simultaneously piece together a track.

Sony's Parappa The Rapper and Um Jammer Lammy, showcased new ways in which a game's soundtrack could be part - if not all - of the gameplay. Still, it's Konami who are proving to be the real pioneers in the field of interactive music. Over the last couple of years they've released a steady stream of arcade games which incorporate either DJ turntables (Beatmania), guitars (Guitar Freaks) or footpads which pick up your dance moves (Dance Dance Revolution) as control interfaces. Already dominating the social lives of Japan's youth population, the games have made the transition to PlayStation and will arrive on these shores soon enough.

Few of us would deny harbouring a secret desire to be worshipped as only a Bono or a Busta Rhymes can be. For millions of tone-deaf game fans around the world, those lurid fantasies are spilling over into simulated reality. In the space of 15 years, gamers have come from playing as Frankie Goes To Hollywood to potentially becoming the next Frankie Goes To Hollywood, all via the power of their games console. Relax, don't do it. Except in this case, do do it.