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?

While the console race has been a close and interesting one to follow, it seems like Microsoft may be whipping a card out of it's sleeve that may just give them a big advantage. The sickening thing about this whole story is that it's an advantage that is going to be obtained by making their console reach a standard of quality that should have already been there all along. Is there a bright future ahead for the Xbox 360, or are we just being setup for even more disappointments from Microsoft? The problem is obviously that Microsoft released a console that was flawed from the start and even though they were in the knowledge of those flaws, decided to release it anyway. It was good to see that Microsoft landed up paying for their underhanded tricks in the long run, with the need to extend RROD warranties for a problem that really shouldn't have been there from the start. Usually I don't enjoy seeing anyone suffer for no reason but they deserved it because at the end of the day it was always the consumer paying the price for a lazy design job and some underhanded business tactics. Many of the issues with the Xbox 360 may now be coming to an end with the latest batch of Xbox 360's to leave the factory and if a decent job was actually done this time around, we may see the era of problematic Xbox 360 consoles actually come to an end.... The new consoles have had their internal memory pushed up from 16MB to 256MB, meaning that the console will now be able to store the NXE dashboard without the use of a hard drive.... The internal memory, while not of much use for other functions is at least big enough that it can now carry the NXE and still have a little bit of space left for a few small Xbox Live Arcade games.

...While the change isn't entirely revolutionary it is a welcome addition for all of the consumers who are going to be looking at buying an Arcade unit.... According to a recent article on Neoseeker , the latest batch of Xbox 360's to come out of the factories are now packing what is called the "Jasper" chipset, which now has a reduced 65nm graphics chip as well as what has now also been revealed as a lower power requirement.... All consoles produced after October 23, 2008 now have this new chipset and if all goes well with the new design then we may see the end of the Red Ring of Death as we know it.

While many of you may already be clued in about the Jasper, a new piece of information has come to light with regards to identifying if an Xbox 360 console is a Jasper or not.

...Will the new chipset mean that consumers in future will no longer need to deal with the terrible woes that have plagued so many gamers in the last two years or are we only being set up for even more disappointment from a lazy design team? Time will have to tell on this one but if Microsoft have actually done a decent job then them and us could possibly looking at a much smoother future for the console and one that should have been there from the start.

According to Greenpeace, Nintendo’s response to Greenpeace concerning their efforts to conserve the precious resources of our planet has been “inadequate”. Greenpeace states “We’re in continuous dialogue with all the companies we speak to, apart from Nintendo,” in and interview with EDGE. “The company has an incredibly poor standard of communication regarding this issue.” “What really struck me was Nintendo’s …

Oh well I guess you can’t be right all the time. It seems that Microsoft and Netflix have managed to sort out the licensing issues surrounding the Sony Columbia Pictures movies not being available for streaming on the NXE. So unfortunately this ones a bust as both 1up and Evil avatar are reporting all movies are back up and working …

Microsoft has announced that the 360 has just surpassed the original Xbox in total sales. What this basically means is that the 360 has now sold over 25 million units which also means the analysts are a couple of million off and we can expect to see some huge sales figures coming out of NPD for November. With the PS3 …

With all of the community games now becoming available on Xbox live, we can get excited about playing some new and interesting titles, and at a reasonable price point of 400 or 200 MS points. But it seems not everyone is happy with the price point, in fact Nathan Fouts, ex-Insomniac employee and creator of Weapon of choice – by …

David Jaffe has been giving us his colourful opinions on God of War 3 over at his personal blog and while people can rightly point to the fact that David is a dedicated PlayStation fan I don’t think that takes away from his vocal feelings about God of War 3. To sum up how he feels about the game “HOLY …

I have to say I have been completely blindsided by the low sales of LittleBigPlanet. It’s not that they are terrible as LBP has now sold 735k units worldwide and should easily cross the million barrier before the end of the year. And we have always said that a million units is the magic mark where a game suddenly becomes …