Nintendo Power is ending publication

[Robo-Floatzel]

Source

Chances are very good that any gamer in the 90s who also owned a Nintendo system of some kind subscribed to, or at least regularly read, Nintendo Power. While the Nintendo-owned magazine often published pieces that were little more than direct marketing copy straight from the Big N itself, it was still one of the best places to go for Nintendo related news, codes, and guides in the days before the full advent of the internet. It also served to help introduce many people (myself included) to the RPG genre through a remarkable promotion the magazine ran which saw all subscribers sent a free copy of Dragon Quest I (then going under its North America-only name of Dragon Warrior) along with a 64-page “Explorer’s Handbook” (which I still own to this day) with a full walkthrough and additional lore not mentioned anywhere else. Indeed, this promotion lead to over 500,000 new subscribers and is credited with the series’ ability to continue in the US. Clearly Nintendo Power has had its influence on the video game industry at large, but now it seems that will all be ending.

That is because today the website Ars Technica reported that after 24 years of publication, Nintendo Power is being shut down. Citing an increasing lack of interest from Nintendo that included a refusal to build on online aspects of the publication, the current producer of NP, tech-and-game-focused Future Publishing (whose other publications include both the official Xbox and official PlayStation magazines) apparently gave word to the editors and staffers of the magazine last week about the pending closure. A now-deleted tweet from NP’s senior editor Chris Hoffman posted earlier today confirmed the news of the closure.

There is no word yet exactly which issue of Nintendo Power will be the publication’s last nor on any plans for how to address current subscribers. The magazine currently has a monthly readership of 475,000, according to Future press materials. Additionally the closure of Nintendo Power is said to be having no negative effect on other Future Publishing publications at this time.

Well guys, it looks like the childhood of many Nintendo gamers is coming to an end, what do you think? I'm rather dissapointed, since I grew up with the magazine, and many of the games I enjoyed playing I learned through Nintendo Power.

 

[Shinobu]

I guess I should have seen this coming now that there are so many online gaming media sources.

 

[Ghetsis-Dennis]

Shoot, now how am I suppose to kill some time when I wait for someone to finish using the Mac? Now we're stuck with the biased magazine known as Game Informer, but I wonder if they're next on shutting down.

 

[Miar]

I was planning on letting my subscription end anyway

But seriously, bummer.
I've been reading NP off and on since the GBA was released.

 

[Robo-Floatzel]

I guess I should have seen this coming now that there are so many online gaming media sources.

True, though most of them are aimed primarily with a teen/adult audience in mind, which leaves not much resources for the younger gamers to use.

Shoot, now how am I suppose to kill some time when I wait for someone to finish using the Mac? Now we're stuck with the biased magazine known as Game Informer, but I wonder if they're next on shutting down.

Also true, since the downfall of GamePro last year (which redirected the subscribers subscriptions to PC World, a magazine which has barely anything to do with gaming at all), there aren't that many offline resources for gamers except GameInformer, which now being the only gaming magazine left (or at least for American gamers), and agreed given how biased the magazine is, there isn't that much left for those who don't use the internet. And we have no idea if GameInformer will go under too in the future.

As for how you can kill time when you wait for someone to finish using the mac, you can draw, watch TV, read a book, or play some games on a console/handheld.

 

[dig]

Print is dying. Why pay for information on a monthly basis that you can get for free on numerous online sites? Print is dying because given that it's made of paper, isn't going to update. You get the final article, until the next print. The only magazines that are likely to remain in print by the end of this decade are niche interest magazines, everything else being easily obtainable online through e-publications, or news feeds, etc.

 

[Slenderman]

I blame the internet. It's really websites like serebii and bulbapedia that ran it down.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

I blame the internet. It's really websites like serebii and bulbapedia that ran it down.

Yeah, man. Bulbapedia was instrumental in taking down Nintendo Power. All the members of that Bulbagarden Forum should be ashamed of themselves.

 

[Slenderman]

I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I think bulbapedia is better than nintendo power because you can get what you want to know, when you want to know it.

 

[Gligar13]

I honestly didn't really care for NP anyway, they were pretty biased too, 10/10ing Sega + Nintendo games.

 

[Robo-Floatzel]

Print is dying. Why pay for information on a monthly basis that you can get for free on numerous online sites? Print is dying because given that it's made of paper, isn't going to update. You get the final article, until the next print. The only magazines that are likely to remain in print by the end of this decade are niche interest magazines, everything else being easily obtainable online through e-publications, or news feeds, etc.

I blame the internet. It's really websites like serebii and bulbapedia that ran it down.

True, the internet is slowly beginning to kill print media as the years go by, which is hypothetically killing those who do not have internet access, and can only get their news via television, newspapers, and magazines.

Still, there's another problem that I probably addressed in an earlier post, is the fact that most game review and news sites are mainly aimed towards teen and adult gamers, leaving nothing for the younger gamers who play games like Pokemon all the time.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I think bulbapedia is better than nintendo power because you can get what you want to know, when you want to know it.

Even though Bulbapedia is focused strictly on Pokemon, and Nintendo Power went over most of Nintendo's franchises such as Mario and Zelda.

I honestly didn't really care for NP anyway, they were pretty biased too, 10/10ing Sega + Nintendo games.

True, as in recent years, Nintendo Power retooled itself into a general game review magazine in the vein of GameInformer, and as a result, became just as biased as that magazine, pity I grew up with the magazine in it's later years.

 

[Goodbye Blue Monday]

I think that if Nintendo Power refused to come up with an online version while seeing that so many other magazines were doing so, it's their own fault.

Plenty of newspapers and magazines have managed to continue in their print form by realizing that a lot of people would rather see the online version. People are often willing to pay for online content if it's known as being particularly great in that area; see The New York Times for example, where it gets revenue from people who want to pay to see more than the allowed no. of articles for freebies per month. I could see how gamers might be willing to pay for an online Nintendo Power subscription if it's considered better than other gaming magazines/sites.

 

[Rayne]

And another one to signal the end of an era. I'll forever remember my first subscription was soley to get a hold of that promo Mewtwo card. And then I stuck around for the awesome fan art and exclusive columns.

But then the internet happened and pretty much did everything the magazine could do. But better and faster.

It's nice to have printed things in your hand, the cover art was always nice to look at, but the true meat of the issue is hard to swallow for a pretty penny when sites offer four course meals for nothing.

I'll miss them and thank them for the great stuff they put out. Though I can't say I'm surprised by this.

I think that if Nintendo Power refused to come up with an online version while seeing that so many other magazines were doing so, it's their own fault.

Plenty of newspapers and magazines have managed to continue in their print form by realizing that a lot of people would rather see the online version.

While that's true, I think Nintendo realizes the sheer competition it would be up against coming so late into this game. They're far too behind the curve unfortunately to catch up. On top of competing with major gaming news outlets like Kotaku, IGN and Joystiq there are tons of niche fandoms like our own that cover details a bit faster than they can keep up with or reveal more info than the official outlet is comfortable with covering. It'll be hard to pull in 'subscribers' if they're so widely saturated already, even if they offered an entirely free service.


It'd be neat to see their online offering, though I'm afraid of how heavily limited Nintendo would have to make it because it does attract more of a younger demographic. If anyone remembers the N forums, while it started out great, it was widely trumpted as a cesspool of spammers and kids. Basically it was a nightmare to maintain and discussions rarely went anywhere. So lots of restrictions were put in play for safety and parental concerns and that just turned a lot of the better users away while the immature users persisted and just made the place worse. So eventually they just got rid of it.


And even if they managed to sort those problems out, drawing the right crowd would be tough since they need something catchy that other sites can't do. They operate on North American shores so they're going to be focusing on directing marketing here. Exclusive content would be certainly worth visiting. They can probably even beat the curve by providing inside information ahead of schedule, but that's not entirely likely since Nintendo made the conscious decision to make their releases very hush hush a while ago, that and the NOA branch has always been treated as they were outside of the main branch of the company.

So I'm guessing faced with all this, that may be why Nintendo decided to pull the plug and let the other gamers pick up the slack.

I say it's not a bad move as it allows them to concentrate more efforts to internal matters. I'm sure they are already up on internet trends and what games are well received by crowds.

 

[Chibster]

Even though I'm not a really long time subscriber(subscribed in 2008), I still think it's sad. A lot of people read it since the day it came out(lucky them!) and they must be really dissapointed about it. I found out about so many things through NP and I liked looking at the fan art at the end of the magazine.

 

[StrikingMidfield]

This sucks... But I guess that's what happens when so many new and more efficient online sources for gaming news start to pop up. :/

 

[Sunburn]

Aww man... I haven't subscribed in years, but I used to back in like 2002-2007, and I always enjoyed getting my issue. I thought it was a well-put-together publication, and I'm sad to see it end.