It’s hard to remember a time when the internet wasn’t the go-to place for news about the latest upcoming games, but that time existed. Back then the best source of knowledge for millions of young gamers came in the form of game magazines. Perhaps the best known and most fondly remembered of these magazines is Nintendo Power, which has been in publication continuously since its launch in 1988. But it seems the difficulties of competing in a world of 24/7 internet journalism may finally have caught up with the venerable publication, as today it was revealed that Future Publishing is planning to end Nintendo Power‘s publication.
From humble beginnings as an outgrowth of the Nintendo Fun Club, Nintendo Power went on to enjoy a monthly readership of 475,000. Originally produced by Nintendo themselves, the magazine was outsourced to the UK media company Future Publishing in 2007. It has long been rumored that Future’s relationship with Nintendo has been a difficult one, with Nintendo coming across as generally uninterested in exploring digital distribution opportunities for the magazine, or even in renewing their contract with Future. According to an Ars Technica source, Nintendo seems to have no plans to take control of the magazine themselves again, preferring to just let it die.
The Nintendo Power staff were supposedly told of the magazine’s situation last week, and are gradually being transitioned into working on Future’s other publications. The move is expected to have little impact on Future’s other titles, which include such magazines as PC Gamer, the official Xbox and Playstation magazines, and MacLife. It in unclear how many future issues of Nintendo Power are planned, or how current subscribers will be compensated. Senior Editor Chris Hoffman said that he is “sad to see it go” and that the Nintendo Power team would “try to make the last issues memorable.” NP Writer Phil Theobald promised that they have “something pretty sweet planned for the final issue.”
Print media in general has been dying a slow death since online publication began to catch on, but expected or not, it’s sad to see such a fan-cherished magazine perish. Remember the good times kids, and take good care of those collections.
I’ll admit to once having a Nintendo Power subscription but stopped right around the time Future took over due to my lack of interest in Wii/DS and that Future took all of the charm out of the magazine and made it into just another generic game mag. I won’t be surprised to see other gaming mags going out of print soon
;_;7 Goodbye NP it was a hell of a run while it lasted
Wow man. Sucks. Goodnight, Sweet Prince ;_;7
Im too Australian to have a Nintendo power magazine subscription
Never had an issue in my hands but dang man. That’s some historical shit. Shame to let it die.