It looks like the newest title to feature everyone's favorite speedy hedgehog "will purely be Sonic's new product [...]" according to the lead designer of Sonic Team. In an interview article on the Official Nintendo Magazine, Yoshihisa Hashimoto talked about all the unique aspects gamers can expect to see in Sonic Unleashed (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii). Find out what else Hashimoto discussed regarding the game in our full article.

Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) shot up to first place in the UK charts for the week of November 17, bumping off former top placer Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360, PS3, PC). The Simpsons Game remains at third place.

Another notable entry into the charts is Super Mario Galaxy which came in at fifth place. Check out the rest of the top 20 in the full article.

The results are in: chosen as this year's Ultimate Game of the Year in the Annual Golden Joystick Awards is (dun dun dun) Gears of War! Gears of War also won the All-Nighter Award, Editor's Choice Award and is the Xbox Game of the Year.

Other winners of the 25th Annual Golden Joystick Awards are the Nintendo Wii, which won Innovation of the Year, World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade as the Online Game of the Year, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess as the Nintendo Game of the Year, and God of War II as the PlayStation Game of the Year.

Here are the other winners of the Golden Joystick Awards:

• Girls' Choice Game of the Year 2007: Guitar Hero II
• Family Game of the Year 2007: Wii Sports
• Handheld Game of the Year 2007: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories
• Mobile Game of the Year 2007: Final Fantasy
• Soundtrack of the Year 2007: Guitar Hero II
• Developer of the Year 2007: Codemasters
• The Total Film One to Watch 2007: Assassin's Creed
• Retailer of the Year 2007: Game
• Publisher of the Year 2007: Nintendo
• PC Game of the Year 2007: The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar

Here's to another year of great games!

Future, the company that publishes the "Official" line of gaming magazines has reported significant growth in readership from its web and print portfo;ios in the past months thanks in large part to the Xbox 360 and Nintendo wings.

Xbox 360: The Official Xbox Magazine is now officially the fastest-growing game publication in the United Kingdom, circulating 65,673 copies during the past year, clinching a total annual growth of 54 percent.

The Official Nintendo Magazine also did well as a result of the immense and still growing popularity of the DS handheld and the Wii console. The rise in readership was tallied at 35 percent which translated in 47,925 total copies sold.

Future reported declines in the circulation of the Official PlayStation Magazine but explained that this is due to the seasonal lull in game industry activity. It also said that recovery was promising after Blu-ray demo discs were included with each issue after June.

Slow activity was also observed in the multiplatform publications under Future along with its PC-gaming interests. However, it said that its websites GamesRadar and CVG attract 3.25 and 1.56 million users a month respectively.

Gamers are now preferring other media for gaming information, it would seem, as the latest figures have revealed that uni-platform gaming magazines are in continuing decline.

ABC has revealed that many Future and Imagine titles has fallen once again. While the sales figures for the Official PlayStation Magazine 3 were not provided, OPSM2's monthly circulation is down by 24 percent from the August 2006 figures, hitting 76,351.

Official Xbox 360 sales, however, were boosted coming up from 42,680 to just over 56,000. A very good news for publisher Future, since it has closed Official Xbox publication recently.

Without the OPSM3 figures, monthly sales of the official titles went down to 175,368, compared to 218,863 six months ago.

In the lead in the unofficial mag titles is Imagine-published Play, with sales of 29,000 despite a 37.5 percent drop in readership compared to last year. Future's PSW figures went down from nearly 34,500 to just over 26,000 copies. Other Imagine titles went down with the following statistics: Powerstation with 15,171 copies from 22, 288 last year, 360 with 11,369 copies from 13,098.

Future published PC gaming titles went down with the following numbers: PC Zone from just over 30,000 to 27,000 while PC Gamer lost 1675 readers, hitting just over 43,600. The decline for PC titles appears to be slow but steady.

The bright spot for these gaming magazine publishers were seen in the stable sales position of multi-platform magazines. Future's Games Master sales hovers around the 54,000 mark while Imagine's Games TM sales stays at 20,000. Future's Edge sales also rose up to four percent from 33,597 to 35,145.

Recently, Nintendo has been grabbing a lot readers' attention, it would seem, after a 17 percent rise in the sales of Official Nintendo Magazine, with readers buying 43,000 copies a month.

James Ashton of Future Publishing complained that the falling magazine sales are to be blamed on the rapid transition to next-generation consoles and the rise in the amount of video game coverage in the mainstream media. Guess we'll be seeing more of you guys checking out this site!