Nintendo Power

» see nintendopower.com as it lived, on the wayback machine

~ the obit ~

nintendo power launched in july 1988 as the in-house magazine of nintendo of america. the inaugural issue went out free to 3.6 million members of the nintendo fun club, with super mario bros. 2 on the cover and a foldout map of the game inside. it was direct-mail evangelism for a console nintendo was still rebuilding the us market for after the 1983 crash.

for the next twenty-four years it was the official record. nes, snes, n64, gamecube, ds, wii, 3ds, wii u. cheat codes, top secrets, counselors corner, the howard and nester comic, the player's pulse letters page, the awards. it transitioned from a tip sheet to a previews-and-reviews magazine through the 90s, then handed off to future publishing in december 2007 when nintendo wanted out of in-house publishing. circulation peaked late at 475,000 paid in 2012, the year it died.

nintendo declined to renew the licensing agreement in august 2012. the final issue was volume 285, dated december 2012, with a fold-out poster of the original cover on the back so the run started and ended on the same image. there was no successor. nintendo went all-in on direct nintendo direct video presentations and a website, and the format the magazine occupied got eaten by ign and gamefaqs years before the actual cancellation.

i did not grow up with this magazine. nintendo power was a nintendo-of-america product and the subscription apparatus did not extend to turkey. i learned what was inside it later from youtube retrospectives and old issues people scanned to archive.org. the closest equivalent for me was the turkish gaming press, level and merlin'in kazani, which had the same role for a different console generation in a different market.

~ the rap sheet ~

~ the rise ~

the magazine's first decade ran on cheat codes and strategy. before the internet was a household utility, the only way to find out where the warp whistles in mario 3 were was to subscribe, or have a friend who did. nintendo of america treated nintendo power as a service, not a publication. it had a 1-900 game counselor hotline, mailed-in player polls that influenced game development, and an art gallery section that ran kid-drawn pictures of link.

this gave it a position no other gaming magazine had. egm and gamepro reviewed games for every console; nintendo power reviewed games nintendo wanted you to buy. the editorial line was unmistakable. the bias was a feature for the readers it kept, who were already inside the brand.

~ the cracks ~

the strategy-guide moat collapsed first. by 1999 gamefaqs hosted faqs for every nintendo game written by players who finished them in a weekend, free, with ascii maps. nintendo power tried to pivot to news and previews and longer features, which moved it into direct competition with magazines that did not have to be polite about nintendo's product decisions. the gba and gamecube years were thinner editorially.

future publishing took it over in december 2007 and modernized the design and tone. it became a more recognizable enthusiast magazine for the wii and ds era, with better writing and a less in-house feel. it kept losing print subscribers anyway because every gaming magazine was losing print subscribers. the licensing deal was not making sense for nintendo by 2012.

~ what got buried with it ~

the foldout poster, the howard and nester strip, the player's pulse mail, the print map of a game's overworld that you had to keep next to the tv. all of those were tied to the medium. ign or polygon could publish a guide tomorrow, but nobody is going to mail you a glossy poster of bowser's castle for keeping the subscription up.

the magazine also took with it nintendo of america's last really direct line into kids who did not yet have a permanent online presence. nintendo direct presentations replaced it with a more efficient broadcast model, but the version of fandom that was built on a magazine arriving in your mailbox once a month is not coming back as a youtube subscription notification.

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