The ongoing battle between Microsoft and Sony is one that shall not be resolved in the near future, I promise you that. In between the heated arguments and accusations on which is the better console, the ammunition is endless. Today, however, I decided to sift through all the fanboy bantering and focus on a single bullet…exclusivity. Since their release, both …

We finally now know when to expect the release of the much anticipated fifth installation of the Gran Turismo series. Before you get too excited, as I did when I first saw the news, Gran Turismo 5 will be indeed be getting a Christmas release (In Europe, so we should be covered as well). Problem is, that it's next Christmas. While it would have rocked the gaming world to have Sony suddenly announce the release of GT5 for this Christmas, we all know that it wasn't a very likely scenario. Either way it is fantastic news to hear that we finally know when the game will be released. Polyphony have a habit of keeping their fans waiting for a very long time but if there is one thing that I have learned from the previous titles, it's that it is always worth the wait. GT Planet reports that in a statement to Spanish Newspaper El Financiero, James Armstrong who is the CEO of Sony in Southern Europe confirmed it's release for Christmas 2009. Here is the translation taken from the newspaper: For next year, the chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment for southern Europe said that they are developing a new game thriller, in which the player may be designing their own history, and the new version of Gran Turismo, which will arrive at Christmas. There you have it. It look's like GT fans are going to have to wait another year but at least they will have something to look forward to all year. Can I please have my PSP version now?

Playstation Beyond has released a bit of news that might get any Gran Turismo fans out there a but giddy. According to their article, the winner of the GT5 Middle East Challenge, Ahmed Al Azmi got the chance to sit with none other than GT creator Kazunori Yamauchi and ask him a bunch of questions about the upcoming game. So here comes the interesting part. When Ahmed asked if it would be possible for them to see GT5 on shelves by 2010, Yamauchi laughed and told him that the game would be "released sooner than expected". Does that mean that we are finally going to be seeing GT5 some day soon. Well from the sounds of things, that's exactly what it means.