Robo-Floatzel
Jacen the Robot Floatzel
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2010
- Messages
- 1,730
- Reaction score
- 325
Source
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.
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.