Mortal Kombat Touts XL Package, Ignores PC
Neverready’s hit Mortal Kombat franchise is about to enter its second wind. Last year’s Mortal Kombat X brought more skull-crunching, ball-busting insanity to gamers than ever before. Since then, MKX saw an outstanding first season of downloadable content. For round two, WB Games announced Mortal Kombat XL – a full package of the previous game, first season pass, and access to a second season of content. Included in that second batch of fighters are Alien’s Xenomorph, Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s Leatherface, as well as Mortal Kombat natives Triborg and Bo Rai Cho. The XL package will sell for $59.99, while existing MKX players can pick up the new content for $19.99.

But one piece of information grabbed gamers’ outrage faster than Scorpion grasping Sub-Zero’s dismembered spinal cord. The second season of content and subsequent game updates will only be happening on next-gen consoles – so the 500,000 players who choose to kombat on their personal computers will be left high and dry. This latest update throws the future of WB-published titles on PC into question.
Early Details On Nintendo’s NX Surface Are Almost Certainly Bullshit
Last year, Nintendo announced the first details of its next gaming platform, codenamed “NX.” The existence of the system is all the public knows about it. The company has been extremely secretive about the nature of “NX,” promising to share details sometime in 2016. This has led to a myriad of recent rumors about the system, coming from sources of varying reliability.
An investor’s report in the Wall Street Journal suggests that the NX could be “a platform of two devices, and may include AR (augmented reality) as well.” These insinuations largely match what many have already assumed about the NX: that it will unite Nintendo’s portable and console lines into one platform. Augmented reality is also a possibility given that the company already experimented with the tech in the early days of the 3DS. The report hypothesizes that the machine will work with “competing devices,” including smartphones, PCs, and even Playstation 4 consoles. However, there’s little reason to believe such compatibility exists outside of investor fantasies.
The second rumor comes from a more direct, albeit still secondhand, source: a consumer interest survey conducted by German market research institute GFK. Screenshots of the survey surfaced online on Wednesday, gauging interest in “gameplay [that] flows between Nintendo NX console and handheld device.” The survey also asks about interest in a paid tier for the console’s online “Nintendo Network” service, as well as NX builds that do not include a disc drive. Finally, the survey also suggests that games will run at “900p/60fps,” suggesting hardware on par with the current WiiU console. Due to the nature of the survey, it’s possible that some of these variables are red herrings designed to conceal the the actual information Nintendo wants feedback on.