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Speaking at a conference organised by the Wall Street Journal in California yesterday, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has made comments implying that the firm may be preparing new initiatives in the portable device space.

The latest incarnation to the most lavish driving simulation in the world is almost upon us, but the wait has been long. By the time it finally emerges in Europe in November it will hold the unwelcome record of being dogged by the most delays in the series, following on almost three and a half years from the mighty Gran Turismo 3 - the first must-have PS2 title that few have managed to better since.

Sony's European boss David Reeves has denied claims that the PS3's tilt sensor controller was one of Ken Kutaragi's back-of-a-beermat-before-the-conference specials - upholding Sony's company line since E3.

When is a sequel not a sequel? When it's Half-Life 2: Episode One, the confusingly titled first new episode in a trilogy of releases that picks up the story where HL2 left off. So it's part two of Half-Life 2, but episode one of three of the second half of the story? Something like that. Even Valve boss Gabe Newell seems exasperated with trying to justify it. "We should have just called it Half-Life 3: Episode One, but it's a bit late now," he chuckles. Actually, Aftermath worked pretty well...

Gran Turismo 4 may have gone to market without an online mode, but that was never likely to be the end of it - and Sony's now put an online-enabled version in the hands of beta testers.

It's unusual for a game to launch on a Wednesday in Europe. Then again Gran Turismo 4 is a pretty unusual game. Enormously popular almost by default, it's the most detailed and extraordinarily vast racing simulation available on the PlayStation 2, and the gains made by developer Polyphony Digital since GT3 have made for a more accessible, rewarding and varied experience than ever before. Team leader and series creator Kazunori Yamauchi was in London last week to celebrate the launch, and we took the opportunity to ask him about the proposed online version, the competition, next-generation games development and PSP title GT4 Mobile.

Notorious anti-videogames campaigner Jack Thompson has been claiming there's a link between games and violence once again after two teenagers were charged with the murder of a 55-year-old man in Louisiana.

ATI executive John Swinimer has declared that the full capabilities of the Nintendo Wii have yet to be revealed, since we've only been given a taster of what the machine can do so far.

The Virtual Console functions of the Wii platform will enable small games to find a large audience, according to Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata, who says that the download system is an alternative to the "single-minded" approach of the industry at present.

In amongst news of all the latest "banhammering" of Halo 2 cheaters, Bungie's latest weekly update notes that we should soon see the release of a documentary detailing the making of the Halo 3 trailer shown off at E3.

"Woah woah woah" was the message from Microsoft late last week as it reacted to reports stemming from a Kikizo interview in which Peter Moore had said, "Nobody is concerned anymore about backwards compatibility."

It's been a week of near-things for followers of Xbox 360 Marketplace - with a promised dashboard update still not quite out and a map pack for Perfect Dark Zero that Microsoft US emailed about on Friday not quite there either.

Microsoft's Forza Motorsport 2 development team is gearing up for the game's Christmas release on Xbox 360 - and the game's website reveals that much of what we saw at E3, contrary to public perception, was in fact using in-game assets.

"We've probably only hit about 60 per cent of the Xbox 360's potential," says Keiji Inafune, reclining in a Bruce Campbell shirt up in Capcom's lofty meeting area, overlooking the throng of the E3 showfloor. Speaking to us through a translator, Inafune talks of his admiration for Microsoft's next-generation format and brushes off the suggestion, put forward by one of the handful of press joining us for a chat, that early titles haven't lived up to the pre-launch bluster. "It's very cyclical," he says of game development. "The more years you study a platform, the better you get. Some of the games you'll see in three of four years will be truly amazing."

There may be shades of Championship Manager about the split between Monolith and Vivendi over F.E.A.R., but the lack of rancour means Vivendi's having no trouble colouring in the F.E.A.R. shaped holes on its 2006 release schedule.

Your orders are in from command. "Use the TCA to have BRAVO mount the SOC-R near NAV point KILO."

Plenty of folks playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion have nothing but good to say about it, but there are some who look upon things differently - people who view all this downloadable content nonsense as a bit poor taste given the various bugs that have still yet to be ironed out.

As Sven and his charges prepare for the World Cup this week, so too are Beautiful Game Studios - by releasing an update to Championship Manager 2006 that introduces International Management.

Square Enix is planning to release mobile title Dirge of Cerberus: Lost Episode - one of its Compilation of Final Fantasy VII titles - exclusively through US carrier Amp'd Mobile for three months beginning this summer.

DreamCatcher's issued one of those carefully worded "we've delayed it" releases about Painkiller: Hell Wars on Xbox.

Good news for those of you who've exhausted your horses, Orreries, Wizard's Towers, Thieves' Dens and, you know, the rest of Oblivion: Bethesda's announced the next round of downloadable content for its gigantic Xbox 360 and PC RPG.

Rockstar's planning to release a demo of Table Tennis on Xbox Live Marketplace, according to lead designer Benjamin Johnson.

As promised at the game's Santa Monica fan festival recently, the Final Fantasy XI development team has released details of the chocobo-raising system due to be introduced in the MMORPG's next update.

One of the videogames industry's most persistent pieces of vapourware, the Phantom Game Service, is still "moving forward in development," according to the company responsible for the as-yet unseen product, Infinium Labs.

Sony's introduced new firmware for the PlayStation Portable adding the facility to download demos straight to Memory Stick, and a TV service button to the system menu - handy since LocationFree TV launched in the UK today.

Half-Life 2: Episode One is available now through Valve's digital distribution system Steam.

Codemasters has released a PC demo of Sensible Soccer 2006, which is due out on PS2, Xbox and PC from June 9th.

Some games should be allowed the dignity of being able to gather dust in peace. Leave them shut away in a cupboard, don't think about exhuming them from the loft or under the bed, no matter how strong our pangs of nostalgia get. Reminiscing is a dangerous game. Most of us have utterly hopeless recollections of how good things really were. Our selective memories play some mean tricks on us, especially regarding the way old games look, and when confronted with the reality we're likely to be at the very least disappointed, and possibly mildly depressed that all our illusions have been shattered. So how does the 13 year-old Sensible Soccer manage to sidestep all of this? Probably because it's such a superbly designed game that no-one ever managed to better before we all got obsessed with putting things into 3D.

With Half-Life 2: Episode One set for release on Steam today at 6pm UK time, Valve's sent out a fourth in its series of teaser trailers, again featuring the lovely Alyx Vance - this time accompanied by her mechanical pal Dog.

Juniper Research analyst Bruce Gibson has forecast huge growth for the mobile gambling industry, predicting that the value of bets placed will rise from USD 2 billion to USD 23 billion by 2011.