(Editor's note: With all the events happening around the gaming industry this week, we've been churning out news reels like cuh. ray. zee.)

Busy, busy week, folks! Both Sony and Microsoft held their Gamer's Day events this week and we've got a lot of updates from both! We've also got the skinny on the recently launched WiiWare service, and what's this? Guitar Hero has... drums? Time to get the ball rolling, head over to the full article!

In the latest issue of the UK Official PlayStation Magazine (the same one that gave Metal Gear Solid 4 a solid 10 rating), they dished out some rumors that, if true, hint at good times ahead. They have rumors of an Assassin's Creed movie in the works, a Cloverfield game, and even the setting for the Uncharted sequel. Check them all out and more in the full article.

We just got word that former gaming magazine editor John Davison has just opened up a new gaming website for parents. This particular website reportedly aims to be the "video games guide for parents" and was established due to the alleged proliferation of violent titles.

John Davison is not at all a stranger to the video game industry. He used to be the editor of magazines EGM as well as the Official PlayStation Magazine for U.S. Check the full story by clicking the "read more" link below.

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.

A couple of days ago, we got a preview of Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3, 360) from The Official PlayStation Magazine (OPM). Today, we get the details from its Microsoft counterpart in publication, The Official Xbox Magazine (OXM). The gta4.net website was able to scrape out the new info from the publication and drafted the list of details that you guys might be dying to know.

We've paraphrased the whole list below:

• GTA IV is now 66% complete.
• Crosshairs pop up when Niko pulls out a gun. This could imply manual aiming in the game.
• When using your mobile phone, the camera will show a zoom-in panel of the mobile phone's interface at the bottom-right corner of your screen - allows you to view your address book for "jobs" and view other contacts.
• Exterior fire escape staircases are accessible; some meetings will happen high up in skyscrapers too - which could lead to you throwing people off the building from that height. Rawr.
• Hand to hand combat will feel "much more natural" and is currently being reworked.
• Camera angles can be changed even while in a car, but this feature is still being experimented on. Rockstar promises to make it more practical and functional though.
• Getting to control boats has been confirmed, steering them is "really nice." Huh?
• Central Park has also been confirmed to be in the game. The fictional name though hasn't been revealed yet.
• Dan Houser confirms that Liberty City in GTA IV is the biggest GTA city they've done so far. He says that details are a big thing.
• Houser also says that they're evolving how the radio works into the game, as well as how police behavior reacts to the things you do.
• The Rockstar developer studio in Scotland has been asking the NYC studio about more specific information on buildings and traffic flow in the Big Apple.
• There's an "Eastern European-sounding" dance station in one of the radio stations.
• Rockstar's "69" humor is back. There's a sign for a "69th Street Diner" and a building called "Twitchins" - that's GTA's version of Brooklyn's Domino's Sugar Factory. Easter eggs!
• "Fun ridiculous" weapons are also in the game because they don't really want to be too "naturalistic".

Games Radar reveals what Official PlayStation Magazine (UK) had to say about Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3, Xbox 360) Okay, if you've managed to read them off the scans, well and good, wait for the next update from the internet about Rockstar's jewel. If not, as the title suggests, the word of the day is NO.

As in "virtually" no familiar GTA faces, for starters. This might mean that although there may be references to the prior games in the series (GTAIII onwards, plus both Stories and Advance, were single-universe - heck, you can argue even all the way to at least the second GTA), the characters from those games might not make any significant appearances in IV's storyline.

Too bad, though. A seven-way brawl among the leading con men of GTA would have been an interesting sight.

Yes, still no planes - although you do get helicopters - but Rockstar hopes there will be no loading screens either, all over the entire game. That means: no loading between islands, no loading between interior and exterior sets... that's all Games Radar mentions off OPM, but the best-case scenario would also be no loading between machinima and gameplay sequences as well. In fact, the best case scenario is that the only loading should be a save file and the start of the game.

Another "no-no" is no character customization a la CJ. Niko doesn't hit the gym or the GAP (what was that shop again in San Andreas?). Also in the "non" list is the fact that Niko won't be able to access all buildings in the environment, although there wouldn't be much of a gameplay reason to, although there also won't be any "pointless spaces" in the game either.

One final no is "no-holds barred". This is a collaborative evolution between three studios: Rockstar North, Rockstar San Diego and Rockstar's New York studios.

Looks like there really is no stopping the baddest boy of them all. The Official PlayStation Magazine UK has published these images and it had us riled up for the newest chapter of videogame crime sprees, Grand Theft Auto IV. Check them out:

The game may still have quite some time before it hits the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Microsoft Xbox 360, but we can already tell that this one's going to be awesome. The visuals are looking to take next-gen gaming a notch higher. Combine that with the trademark explosive gameplay of the series and you've got a recipe for mayhem.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Many more drool-inducing scans await you after the jump!

News direct from GTA4.net, a forum participant claimed that the Official PlayStation Magazine will be featuring a full-blown, exclusive look at the highly-anticipated Grand Theft Auto sequel from Rockstar Games. The next issue of the UK version of the Official PlayStation Magazine should be up for sale on May 2, 2007.

OPM UK's editor Tim Clark has confirmed the claims, stating that the feature is not just a coverage of the Grand Theft Auto IV (for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3) trailer released just last week (or real-life versions of it). He claimed that fans of the game can expect brand new and exclusive screenshots and insider info straight from Rockstar.

Since the Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine has been discontinued, U.S. fans could probably just opt for the GameInformer feature of GTA IV also coming this May. GTA4.net has officially announced that it will provide a full coverage of the preview right on their website.

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!