R.I.P. Nintendo Power 1988-2012
I remember when I was growing up, I didn’t have fancy websites to turn to when a game stumped me… Then again back in the day games certainly stumped me more often. As a kid growing up in the early 90′s sitting at his NES with no idea what to do next, I could always turn to Nintendo Power as my saving grace. The tips and tricks, game cheats and previews always had me standing at the magazine rack in the grocery store or blockbuster while my family was off doing more productive things. Sure the reviews were only there to make Nintendo games look better since they owned the magazine, but I still have a lot of fond memories 0f Nintendo Power.
Your typical early 90′s Nintendo Power reader
That’s why it’s a sad day in the gaming community, Nintendo has announced that they have no plans to continue Nintendo Power magazine after their contract with Future Publishing is up. Nintendo Power is coming to an end.
A week ago Future Publishing employees were notified that their contract with Nintendo would not be renewed, and have since been moved to other projects. Nintendo has been called notoriously hard to work with, and never expressed interest in taking the series online or expanding the brand in any way, so it’s not completely out of left field that the magazine is ending. Nintendo Power’s senior editor Chris Hoffman tweeted that he wants to “try to make the last issues memorable.” So I’m going to make sure I get my hands on the last few issues of Nintendo Power, because they may well be a piece of gaming history.
Is this the future of all gaming magazines? With information so readily available online will we as gamers cease to need magazines like Nintendo Power or GameInformer? Personally, even though I usually don’t learn much new from these magazines, I always enjoy reading the impressions of future titles, especially since I can do it on the go without worrying about the battery of my phone dieing. So is gaming print media on the outs? Or do you think there will always be a market for a good game magazine?
About the Author
Zac Grubb+ I've never been good at talking about myself. I like to think of myself as a professional appreciator of games. My love of video games goes so deep that I wrote my senior thesis on Bioshock as a digital re-imagining of Atlas Shrugged, needless to say I will never play that game again.
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