When you gotta go, you gotta go…

Ryan Reynolds revealed the first official promo shot for Deadpool and it is — appropriately — a shot of the merc taking some time to get caught up on current affairs while attending to bodily functions. Well… His current affairs anyway. He’s reading the latest Deadpool comic, #250, which is reported to feature the character’s death.

Reynolds tweeted –

Smells like someone died up in here. #alivepool pic.twitter.com/sZqvmagVND

— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) April 8, 2015

Eidos Montreal announced the next installment of the Deus Ex series today with a slick CGI trailer. It was announced for PS4, so far no other platforms have been announced.

Check it out.

System of a Down makes everything better.

Mortal Kombat X is out on 4/14/15 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.

Its been an interesting few years for UK retailer GAME (hereafter referred to as Game because I’m to lazy to hold down the shift key that much). After emerging back into the public market, the company has seemed to be experiencing positive growth. However, recent data reveals that Game posted a 1.8% decline in pre-tax profits for the 26 weeks to January 26. Actual revenues hit  £582.1 million, which is a decrease from last year of 0.7%.

Ok Digmbot, those are numbers. But what do they mean? Well dear reader, all in all Game has taken a hit in profits. Once you do a bunch of math stuff and add in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, the company had about a 16.3% drop from last year. Of course, management had told investors this was coming, so the stock only took a 9% drop when the results were announced.

The departure of CFO Benedict Smith just a few weeks after this profits warning was issued is interesting. Smith as brought out in January 13, which was about 1.5 years before the company returned to the public market. Mr. Smith was actual a private equity veteran, which means someone without much experience in the games world. Naturally, Martyn Gibbs the CEO praised Smith for his contribution to the company, saying in part:

“Benedict has been a key member our management team which has transformed GAME, achieved a successful IPO and driven forward our strategy of being at the heart of the gaming community.”

Gibbs also commented on the challenging Christmas the company recently emerged from and said he remained confident in the company’s strategy.

There are many other factors at work here financially, such as the fact that Game operates with very little capital debt, and that they just acquire eSports team Multi for £20 million, £1.2 of which came directly from the company’s cash. While some may cry that Game is once again sliding into decline, it more seems that they are holding steady, reorganizing and preparing to diversify their business into other markets. And while some may say the end of the age of brick-and-mortar game (no pun intended) stores is coming to and end as digital content purchases rise, don’t forget that you can’t go to Steam and grab a used copy of European Ship Simulator…

With a brand new Nintendo Direct under our belts, and one that the Big N was careful to emphasize was NOT an April Fool’s prank, we now know a bit more about Nintendo’s strategy moving forward:

• Mewtwo has been dated and priced for Smash
• Lucas is coming to Smash
• Nintendo wants us to vote on the next Smash character
• The new Fire Emblem is going to be radically different
• Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem is still a thing and it looks…interesting
• Splatoon is looking pretty darn good
• Amiibos! Yarn Amiibos! Packs of Amiibos! Card Amiibos!
• Microtransactions!
• Mario Kart 8 just got a lot faster

So, with those high points in mind, lets see what the staff thinks.

Digmbot

First off, I was excited to get a date for Mewtwo. I own Smash on Wii U and 3DS, so I get him for free. As for Lucas, I couldn’t care less. He was broken in Brawl, and since he IS broken, we all know they won’t balance him right in this game either. Plus, he’s a Ness clone, so this is an easy move for Nintendo. Reskin Ness and his animations, add the few unique ones for Lucas and BAM! DLC character. I was excited about Fire Emblem until the reports that if you want to play both sides of the story, you have to buy two games. If that’s the case, this is one SRPG I won’t be playing. Keeping the Fire Emblem train rolling, Shin Megami has never been my cup of tea, so I don’t have much interest here. At least they haven’t forgotten about it after they teased everyone in 2013. I’m still hyped about Splatoon, and now I need to make Lone get a Wii U so I can demolish him 1v1. You hear that Lone? 1V1 ME BRO!

I’ll take the Amiibos and microtransactions together. Yarn Yoshi amiibos sound awesome, although they won’t be as adorable as the Yoshis Scarlet Dragon could make. The Splatoon pack seems cool. And card Amiibos will be nice for people on the go. On the other hand…I can’t afford all these Amiibos. Nobody can. Nintendo, we are not made of money. Stahp. And stop adding microtransactions to everything. For the last few years, I’ve been so happy that you don’t nickle and dime us to death (not sure what the UK version of that saying is), and now you’re starting down a slippery slope. Yeah, the Pokémon Rumble game will probably be cool. But I’m not giving you real money for Poke Diamonds. I know you’re getting into phone games, and this probably makes sense there. But I already paid good money for my consoles. So stop it.

And finally, Mario Kart 8. More DLC is good. And 200CC seems fun. But….instead of making Mario Kart 8 faster, why don’t you just GIVE ME F-ZERO ALREADY!

*Drops mic, flips table, storms out*

PredictedCyborg

This Direct had something for everyone, with a lot of Nintendo’s most long running franchises making some appearance, from Mario Kart 8 updates to some Animal Crossing content that I don’t think a lot of us were expecting to see. Personally I was was glad to see some of this Nintendo Direct’s time taken up with talking about indie games.

Out of the big three console companies, Nintendo has always been the one who seems most open to trying new things. With Code Name S.T.E.A.M being spoken about with tournaments coming soon and the news that two well-known and loved indie games are coming to Nintendo console – Octodad: Dadliest Catch and Don’t Starve Giant Edition – I’d say that Nintendo still is. I hope that they port over well.

The other big thing that excited me was that a number of DS and N64 games were coming to virtual console. An N64 was one of the first consoles I had as a child and my beloved DS served me well for many years. It’s nice to see a little focus on the retro and the fondly remembered games of yesteryear. 🙂

Lonesamurai

Ok, I watched the Nintendo Direct early this morning and I must admit, there wasn’t really much new there.  One thing I did notice that worries me is the quickly increasing amount of paid add ons/DLC

I get that this is the market, but I expect more from Nintendo.

Also, Yoshi’s new game makes me itch to watch it, but then I am allergic to wool… so I’ll skip that one too 😛