While we are still waiting for the third installment of the Yakuza franchise to hit our shores, Japanese gamers have more reasons to celebrate as Sega has finally announced, Yakuza 4, at the Tokyo Game Show. Yes folks, the latest installment of Sega's crime franchise is indeed coming and by the looks of things, this one's gonna be massive. Check out the trailer after the jump.

Uh.. okay. This certainly puts a wedge on the excitement and anticipation for Gran Turismo 5. It's practically been some three years in the making now, and, well, we were kinda hoping it'll be released by the end of the year. So what's this we're hearing that GT5 is only 65% complete?

Here's some great news for all PS3 owners, it looks like Yakuza 3 is indeed headed for a western release. According to a reliable source from 1UP, the PS3 exclusive title is currently being localized for North American and European release.

The way this news bit came out was a bit funny. The PlayStation Blog posted on the release of Valkyria Chronicles 2 for the PSP, but the comments section got a little off topic. Lucky for us, Sega assistant community manager Aaron Webber made it a point to reply to a few posts, so we are all treated to this piece of info - Sega still has plans of releasing Yakuza 3 in the US.

With GamesCom out of the way, there's still another big gaming event on the calendar: the Tokyo Game Show. For this year's TGS, Sega will be showing off a pretty balanced lineup that includes handheld sequel Valkyria Chronicles 2, the PS3 and Xbox 360 RPG End of Eternity, and PS3 exclusive Yakuza 4.

The QJ.NET PS3 blog was chock full of big gaming news again this week, thanks to a whole load of bits about Final Fantasy XIII. Western game devs also jumped into the fray with details from the Sony exclusives inFamous, God of War 3, and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. They even managed to sneak in a little Sly Cooper teaser in the inFamous demo. With E3 less than a month away, we also saw publishers starting to hype up their offerings for the yearly gaming expo. All that and more in this week's PS3 Weekend Warrior.

A pair of new games for the Sony PlayStation 3 have been revealed in the latest issue of Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu. One is a new entry in the Ryu ga Gotoku series, known as Yakuza outside Japan. The other game is an RPG called Trinity Universe from Gust, Nippon Ichi Software, and Idea Factory. More details and scans after the jump.

While Yakuza 3's sojourn outside the land of the rising sun is still up in the air, Japanese gaming mag Weekly Famitsu gave out a few details about the game. Namely, mandatory installation. Details after the jump.

First-time owners of PS3 consoles in Japan are let in on a new kind of promotional campaign. SCEJ has announced that PS3 units in Japan will be getting a freebie disc containing demos and trailers from the PSN. Some choice slabs of meat (i.e. DLC trailers and demos) were compiled and put on discs for the users' convenience: MGS4 demo, LBP trailer, etc. Here's something interesting though: apparently, the RE5 demo is not exclusive to the Xbox 360 in Japan. It's now part of SCEJ's demo discs!

This week's PlayStation Network video store update has a whole slew of superhero moves. There are three Superman movies in there (one of which is the recent Superman Returns movie), and the uber cool Batman: Gotham Knight animated shorts (which I just saw the other day, mind you - it was win!). There are also a couple of Christmas-themed movies stirred into the mix: Elf, Jingle All the Way, and A Christmas Story.