Nintendo Power: The End of an Era

It was the autumn of 1990.  I was 8 or so years old and had my world turned upside down by the awesomeness of video games.  One day, a fellow student gave me his copy of Nintendo Power with Maniac Mansion on the cover.  The goal was to keep the magazine after he showed me the preview on the Super Nintendo in Japan.  It was called the Super Famicom and I got to see a glimpse of what the 4^th Super Mario Bros. game would look like.  As I read the magazine, I was taken aback and amazed at the world Nintendo had in store for me.  From Maniac Mansion to Rollergames, I was hooked on this info.  It was soon after this that I took a shine to and a liking to video game magazines.  What would follow was a slew of years trying to read as many magazines as possible, looking to find different games for the systems I owned.  My main sources of info at the time were the New York Library for any copies of EGM and GamePro and my older brother’s stash of GamePro magazines.  The former was easier to deal with as my older brother tended to be very, VERY, greedy towards his things (even if he never used them or wanted to).  After some begging and some noticing from my mother, my life was about to get so much better.  In November of 1993, I received my first issue of Nintendo Power.  It was the Secret of Mana issue.  I couldn’t have been happier.  From that day up until the early 2000s, I would receive subscription issues of Nintendo Power.  There were snags (missing issues due to late subscriptions or issues with the mail), but I couldn’t be deterred.  This was mine.  No more borrowing.  No more hoping that the library had something to read.  I had my own magazine.  It’s 2012 and I haven’t had a subscription to any magazines since about a decade or so.  A few days ago, I just learned that after a quarter of a century, Nintendo Power was going to be discontinued.  The era is over.  My heart is saddened.  Nintendo’s main form of advertisement is now finished.  All I can do is look back and smile.

Nintendo Power was the very first video game publication in the long storied history of video games.  It was only fitting I suppose that the company that helped bring rebirth to the video game industry was now bringing life to video game printed media.  Initially, Nintendo only had their “Nintendo Fun Club” to join.  Gamers would receive newsletters, merchandise, and even video game tips, tricks, advice, and guidance for some of the toughest games on the Nintendo Entertainment System.  This would come in the forms of phone calls via their hotline or an exclusive newsletter that only members would get.  Then, in 1987, with the American sequel to Super Mario Bros. being released, the advent of landmark titles like Metroid and Kid Icarus, and the debut of one of the most auspicious titles in Nintendo’s history, The Legend of Zelda, Nintendo had a vision.  What if we take what we have in the newsletter and on the hotline and put it together in a printed form, like say a magazine?  The answer: Nintendo Power.  The rest is history.

Nintendo Power had it all for me when it came to gaming news.  If anything, it was the very first video game magazine publication, setting up the blueprint for what a gaming magazine should have and how a gaming magazine should be.  There was a section for letters written to Nintendo, as various fans could ask the editors a slew of questions about games, life, etc.  The main selling point to the magazine for me was the in-depth looks at the games presented in the magazine.  They dedicated about 10 or more pages to the games in question, with strategy, tips, information from the manual, maps and a small walkthrough of the first few stages of the games given.  Through Nintendo Power, Zelda fans received a whole map of Hyrule from The Legend of Zelda.  There was also a map for Metroid in the first issue.  Another selling point was the in-depth previews they would give a game, either through interviews and screenshots, or also through a walkthrough, albeit a small one.  The Counselor’s Corner was a set of pages dedicated to common questions asked by players pertaining to any challenging games or recently released games.  Classified Information was dedicated to the slew of codes and secrets per game, discovered by the editors and for your assistance.  There’s a top games list for the month for every Nintendo system, a section for which games are coming soon, a review section for games that have come out within the month, a monthly contest for a feature game that month, and various little nuances like trading cards, fan art, short stories, pull-out posters and comics about certain games featured in the magazine.  The most prolific comics in Nintendo Power’s history include “Howard and Nester”, “Super Mario Adventures” and “The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past”.  All in all, it was a consummate magazine, and an impactful one at that.  That’s pretty big for a magazine owned exclusively by a video game company.

With the rising popularity of Nintendo Power, it wouldn’t take long before other publishers would follow suit.  Nintendo Power was one of the three most popular, impactful, and long-standing magazine in publication history.  The other two were GamePro magazine and Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM).  GamePro magazine came into fruition about 2 or so years after the first Nintendo Power publication.  The selling point was this: GamePro was the first and #1 multi-platform video game magazine in the world.  Gamepro did utilize the various things that Nintendo Power has done, but there were also a slew of things that GamePro did that made it stand out.  For starters, this covered not just Nintendo, but every video game system on the market, be it Atari, Turbo Duo, Sega, Philips, etc.  Some of the other nuances included S.W.A.T. (Secret Weapons and Tactics) which had secrets on games for every system, Hot at the Arcades which showcased recent games released in arcades, fan art, pull-out posters, Overseas Projects which talked about games outside of the United States, and even a pull-out strategy guide of sorts for certain games at the time.   Gamepro had a review system as it rated the graphics, sound, control and fun factor of each game.  The scores if added together could average out close to the final score given to the game itself.  This would be the big talking point when it came to games as it was the most controversial when it came to other magazines.  More often than not, you would hear about how GamePro gave a game a rather different review than the others, and not being wise about their choices.  GamePro was mostly consisting of game reviews than previews, strategies, and such as they had many games to cover and systems as well.  GamePro was known for various other things including LamePro, which was a small section dedicated to April Fool’s Day jokes, unique artwork provided by their art staff, and the very unique group of reviewers that were pseudonyms for the actual review staff.  We had such names as Slasher Quan, Brother Buzz, Dr. Dave, Rampant Saxon, Earth Angel, and more.  GamePro had such a great rapport with fans due to it being rife with personality.  In fact, its popularity actually spawned not 1, but 2 different television shows on two separate occasions.  The first was hosted by former TV. game show host and current producer, J.D. Roth as he and at times a co-host, would talk about a game that has come out or is on its way to release.  You would also get to see J.D. at press events for various game companies and such showcasing games for various systems.  There were also show segments dedicated to S.W.A.T.Pro as J.D. would show certain codes and tips in action, like the Final Fight options code which I never knew about until after I saw the show.  The second iteration was hosted by an unnamed host, with the same as the first.  However, the games were for the newer console generation at the time.  It lasted as long as the first, sadly and didn’t stay long.  As of recently, GamePro ceased publication, ending its 20+ year run in publication.

Electronic Gaming Monthly was the third and the youngest of the three magazines to come out, rounding out the big three gaming publications.  When this magazine was first mentioned, I first wondered what made this any different from GamePro.  One such thing was that the reviewers and editors actually admitted who they were.  EGM made names like Dan Hsu, Crispin Boyer, Shawn Smith, John Davison, James Mielke, and such very popular names within the gaming industry.  In fact, some of them have their own video game companies, as I believe Crispin Boyer was the mind behind Ninja Town.  It was only Sushi-X that was the mysterious reviewer who never revealed himself.  He covered fighting games.  What made this magazine stand out was that it did what GamePro did, only grander.  GamePro had LamePro, but EGM had April fool’s jokes that were so real that virtually the entire gaming community was fooled.  What made them real was the fact that they were game secrets, albeit fake secrets that were placed next to real secrets.  People would try ad-nausea to uncover these secrets but to no avail, either because of their difficulty or because they were discovered to be fake.  Two such popular jokes were unlocking Ryu’s Master in Street Fighter 2 (and later Street Fighter 3), and unlocking Sonic and Tails in Super Smash Brothers Melee.  Because of the nature of these jokes and what happened because of it, Capcom and Nintendo, respectively, put Ryu’s master and Sonic in later sequels to those games.    Common nuances like fan art, letters to the editors, game previews and reviews could be found in EGM.  However, if there was any grand difference in the scheme of things, it was the fact that EGM just had more, and I mean much more to offer.  This magazine was known as the biggest game magazine on the market, usually with over 300 pages of content.  This included previews, import games, reviews (which, like Nintendo Power and unlike GamePro, was more compact), comics, and even exclusive news.  EGM did have the knack of coming up with exclusive news that wouldn’t or couldn’t be found in GamePro until a few weeks or months later.  This didn’t really apply to Nintendo Power since they were primarily referring to Nintendo systems.  They had their own scoops, if any, that EGM and GamePro didn’t learn about until later.  Another key to EGM’s publications was its cover stories and the amount of time they dedicated to them in the magazine.  A staple of EGM was usually a 5 to 13 article on the game or games featured on the cover of the magazine.  Nintendo was known for this mostly, but unlike EGM, most of the articles also included strategy pertaining to the game.   EGM was able to have sit-down interviews and in-depth looks at the game, but not strategy, at least not in the same depth as that of Nintendo.  Regardless, this amount of content would not go unnoticed as it became the driving staple of EGM magazine throughout the years.  The review system evolved constantly, keeping the opinions per each game fresh in the interest of fairness.  They started with letter grades from A+ to F, and then moved on to a more numerical system where the games were rated out of 10.  To add to this, each game initially was reviewed by a pool of editors, only to switch to one editor later, and then, it switched back to a number of editors.  Due to publication issues with parent companies and the growth of competition in publication or electronically (all 3 magazines had to contend with the internet when it came to news that was readily available), EGM was the first of the three to cease publication in 2009.  It was the youngest of the three, and even had spin-off magazines like EGM2 (which promised more of what EGM didn’t have).  However, due to an outcry of fans and some quick thinking, EGM returned to publication, however, it would be an internet exclusive.  Interestingly enough, during the final years of the first publication, EGM and its editors opened up the website, 1UP.com, where you could see the same articles, reviews, news, etc. from the writers.  Painstakingly enough, all of, if not most of the newer EGM magazines (from the early 2000s) were shared and had migrated to this site.  Also, the majority of the original staff can be found working on this website, even as of today.  The new magazine, EGM Now, can be found with a new group of reviewers and has digital copies of the magazine in publication via PDF format.  On the website itself, there is a slew of news, while reviews may be relegated to the magazine itself.  As of right now, it is the only one of the big three that still exists in a form of publication, but when it comes to physical publication, it was actually the first of the three to cease publication, due to issues with their distributor.

The reason I brought up these two magazines is because it can be clearly seen that Nintendo Power had a direct correlation with their creation, rise to popularity, and competition with Nintendo Power as publications.  Nintendo would then make changes to their magazine in a slew of attempts to keep up with GamePro and EGM.  They tried different logos, different book spines, more feature articles, a review style more like their competition, and the like.  All in all, despite the changes, modifications and such, Nintendo Power remained strong in support and sales, at least until the advent of the internet and its media.  I remember Nintendo sending me such great additional prizes like promotional videos for current and upcoming games.  Some of them went from very informative (Donkey Kong Country, Nintendo 64) to very silly (Diddy Kong Racing, Starfox 64) to downright shameless (Donkey Kong 64, Jet Force Gemini).  Still, I enjoyed what I saw and remained a fan to Nintendo Power.  I also remember the free guides they sent me for being a loyal subscriber and for my little brother for continuing where I left off.  Had it not been for Nintendo Power, I’d never be able to get through Metroid Prime.  Oh and how could I forget the comics?  I remember seeing the complete run of Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Super Mario Adventures in a catalog and thought how cool it would be to have that.  Well, I got them both and still enjoy reading them as two video games translated into Japanese Manga.  However, that’s no longer going to be the case, as Nintendo Power is no longer in print, and I’ve ended my subscription years ago.

Now, one has to wonder not just why Nintendo Power stayed strong, but also how it went belly up in the first place.  To be honest, the internet hasn’t done any form of physical print any favors.  Newspapers are rarely bought and even rarer are magazine subscriptions.  With the internet, you can get access to news much quicker than you can with a magazine you receive each month.  I’ve learned a slew of different forms of info from the internet that I only read about in magazines months later.  This has to be one of the killing points for magazines.  So, how was it that Nintendo Power still forged ahead?  Well, for everyone who relies on the internet, there are those who don’t.  People still take it upon themselves to buy that magazine off the newsstand, or if anything, subscribe to that magazine.  I know game employees who don’t even know of the websites I look at and don’t know anything about what’s happening in the world of video games.  Heck, GameStop employees didn’t know that Nintendo is having a major press event in the coming weeks to promote the Wii U.  If anything, they get their info from the free copies of Game Informer they can find.  In Nintendo Power’s case, I’m sure a slew of Nintendo fans who don’t go to websites buy it right off the newsstands, or ask their parents to do it for them.  Not everyone is wired to the internet, especially if it has to do with the internal news of the video game industry.  It just doesn’t appeal to them.  Magazines have a way to show and glamorize the world they represent, with or without mentioning the inner workings of their medium.  Nintendo Power did a great job of that.

It’s tough to say goodbye, especially if it’s to something you hold dear.  Nintendo Power, like the Nintendo Entertainment System has made a profound impact on the business they represent.  Through the debut of the NES, the video game industry bounced back from collapse only to rise to prominence and become one of the most lucrative mediums in the world today.  Through the debut of Nintendo Power, the video game industry had a means of communication with its fans and supporters that grew to the point of making the transition from printed type to the internet.  Without Nintendo Power, there would be no EGM, no GamePro, no GameFan, no official magazines for certain game systems, no websites of great reputation like Kotaku, and so on.  So, thank you, Nintendo Power.  Thanks for the memories.  We’ll see you in that great newsstand in the sky.