Sensible Erection | Nintendo Power going under

Thursday, 23 August 2012

quote [ A beloved, longstanding mainstay of the Nintendo gaming scene may soon be another casualty in the war between print and digital. According to an Ars Technica source, Nintendo Power is no more. Staffers were allegedly told of the closure last week, and already have been moved to other Future Publishing publications (among them GamesRadar and MacLife). ]

First video game mag I ever subscribed to, back in the NES era.

Ars article
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/08/source-nintendo-power-magazine-to-cease-publication/

VB reflection
http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/22/remembering-nintendo-power/

24 year run, tho I haven't owned an issue since 91 myself. The thumb is the first issue I ever received as a kid featuring DuckTails. I remember Nintendo Power for the freebies and offers, when I subscribed I got a free copy of Dragon Warrior which lead to my love of JRPG's over the years.

Anyone else remember the monthly "surveys" you could fill out for a chance to win free games?

Not sure how any magazine's survive these days with the digital content being king.

[games] [by Sic_Jake@3:21amGMT] [+5 Underrated]

Comments

Cakkafracle said @ 3:26am GMT on 23rd Aug
sadface -> :( ): <- ecafdas

Chop-Logik said @ 3:27am GMT on 23rd Aug [Score:1 Insightful]

Naruki said @ 1:43pm GMT on 23rd Aug
Wow, it's almost as though she is really boning me...

strangeffect said @ 4:01am GMT on 23rd Aug [Score:1 Underrated]
Just saw my entire childhood flash before my eyes, thanks some of their covers.

Ebichuman said @ 10:38am GMT on 23rd Aug
Oh god. That's less triggering nostalgia than a throbbing emotional flashback.

I suppose some people's best childhood memories are of their families or pets or accomplishments. Nope, for me, getting the Super Mario Bros. 3 issue was pretty much the best moment of my childhood.

Just looking at the cover for the first time in a decade, I can remember clearly getting home from school and finding the issue. I wanted to absorb that damn magazine into my body I was so excited--I carried around that issue everywhere for like two months.

What can I say? I was a lonely kid, but I loved me my periodicals.

MindNinja said @ 4:13am GMT on 23rd Aug
I had the first issue all the way up to, hell, whatever issue I stopped my subscription on in the late '90s, when I shifted from Nintendo to Sony. Lots of great gaming memories attached to those issues, all of which (I think) I tossed when I moved in '08. I was not happy with doing that, but I don't regret it.

As for it ending... gaming mags were great for their time, but no longer necessary in the age of the internet. Kinda sad, but expected - I didn't even know NP was still being published.

goatroast said @ 4:29am GMT on 23rd Aug [Score:1 Insightful]
Is this Classified Information?

Barnabas_Truman said @ 4:30am GMT on 23rd Aug
But now where will I learn how to do secret moves in Mortal Kombat II?

Kat said @ 4:32am GMT on 23rd Aug [Score:2]
+10 Old?

ENZ said @ 5:00am GMT on 23rd Aug
It was going to happen eventually. Print magazines served their purpose before people had widespread access to the internet. Useful for getting news on upcoming games, reading reviews to know which ones are worth playing, and cheats and walkthroughs to get you through if you're stuck. But these days there are dozens of professional games journalism sites, hundreds of amateur sites, and fan-made wikis for just about every game made.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 5:21am GMT on 23rd Aug
And besides, now that NetHack and Dwarf Fortress are available, nobody actually has to buy games anymore.

toomuchscience said @ 3:55pm GMT on 24th Aug
I think you mean Dungeon Crawl.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 5:30am GMT on 30th Aug
Tried it a couple of times; never really got into it.

NetHack, though, I was introduced to NetHack about a decade ago and I'm still enjoying it.

Three ascensions so far (two wizards and a samurai).

gunthar said @ 5:13am GMT on 23rd Aug
saw this coming for a while, too =(

anagramophone said @ 5:42am GMT on 23rd Aug [Score:1 Underrated]
i had no idea nintendo power was still published

Anti-fuites said @ 11:18am GMT on 23rd Aug
That still exists?

Misanthrope said @ 11:25am GMT on 23rd Aug
On one hand, Nintendo is sort of the shepherd of my experience of gaming. On the other hand, fuck where they're going.

Ebichuman said @ 12:04pm GMT on 23rd Aug
I'm not sure if you're referring to this, but I agree Nintendo is severely losing its way.

Specifically, I can't stand the cash-in "retro" Mario games, and Nintendo's other sacred franchises like Zelda are not far behind. People seem to go gaga over them, but to me, they're like animated corpses of creative games. They seem to be made to press as many nostalgia buttons with as little innovation as possible.

user420 said @ 1:10pm GMT on 23rd Aug
Nintendo is dead to me. The only reason I had any interest in them at all for the longest time was the Metroid franchise, but after the last abomination they pushed out for the Wii I'm completely done with them.

Maybe if they ever stop with the gimmick based systems and decide to get serious and release something that could actually compete with Sony and Microsoft I'll give them another chance, but I doubt that will ever happen.

ebsyndrome said @ 1:40pm GMT on 23rd Aug
Nintendo lost their way when they took the motion controller too seriously. You're supposed to appeal to core video game players and add motion controllers as add ons like Sony and Microsoft did. Now Microsoft is on top in my opinion with the Kinect and it's cameras. But real video game players don't want to swing a controller all the time ...if at all.

Plus, Nintendo reached out to be even more family oriented at the same time. Which was another dumb move because you can have plenty of family/party games on your console while holding on to some edginess. Nintendo needs to grow a pair and make some darker games and get back to a controller that isn't so rectangular.

azazel said @ 2:43pm GMT on 23rd Aug [Score:1 Insightful]
Real video game players.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 5:13pm GMT on 23rd Aug
And true Scotsmen.

chold_numa said @ 9:43pm GMT on 23rd Aug
The Wii is the response to Sony and Microsoft's entry into the console market. Sony and Microsoft essentially fight over the same portion of the gaming market, so by building a console that services the family market, Nintendo carefully sidesteps them.

The gaming industry is littered with failures, but Nintendo isn't one of them. Since their founding, they've only had a few unprofitable quarters, and they own some of the best known video game franchises outright. However, again, they're having a crisis as the mobile market (which has been very good for them since the Game Boy) OS being eaten by phones, and their console market still has 2 very strong competitors in it. While they can probably survive one bad generation (like the N64), they'll find it hard without their mobile gaming cash cow.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 5:13pm GMT on 23rd Aug
If you want retro and nostalgia, Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda are just as playable now as they were 26 years ago.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 5:17pm GMT on 23rd Aug
Also NetHack.

theolypse said @ 1:37am GMT on 24th Aug
Exactly as playable. Yes.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 5:32am GMT on 30th Aug
Good enough for me. With a few exceptions the only recent games I find interesting are Dwarf Fortress and some of the Humble Bundle stuff. Also Spelunky is a lot of fun.

Ebichuman said @ 11:53pm GMT on 23rd Aug
I am susceptible to some amount of nostalgia, but "old" things aren't enough to push my buttons. Thing is, I remember when Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda were new, and damn, that's the experience I want. I want to have new experiences, not old ones.

Nintendo can still do it, it's just not as easy so they won't do it. Super Mario Galaxy and Galaxy 2 are examples of really significantly new games in the Mario series, fundamentally altering core mechanics and then thoroughly squeezing every last drop of fun out of them.

Conversely, when I played New Super Mario Bros., I just kept waiting for something interesting or unexpected to happen. And it never did. Like they rigorously mercilessly removed everything that wasn't either recycled or a harmless (and concordantly, joyless) gimmick.

Nintendo has cashed in most of my good will at this point, so I'll just sit around and wait until the correction - when they fail because, like Atari and Sony before them, they became aloof and satisfied with "good enough" and let someone else eat their lunch by producing something truly new and interesting.

Supreme_Coconut said @ 1:47am GMT on 24th Aug
I really loved New Super Mario Bros Wii. It's probably the most fun I've had playing a game in the past fifteen years. It was like the right amount of challenge and loads of fun from start to finish (when the ice stage wasn't frustrating me). I ended up getting all but two stars (on the 7th star road stage) and really enjoyed it.
And yes, Galaxy and Galaxy 2 were great additions to the Mario franchise.

assbastard said @ 12:19pm GMT on 23rd Aug [Score:2]
December 2012 will be the last issue... DAMN YOU, MAYANS!

mechanical contrivance said @ 12:24am GMT on 24th Aug
I still have all mine from issue 6 to the mid 90s, plus the player's guides and most of the boxes the games came in. My NES, SNES, N64 and Gamecube are hooked up to my tv right now. Just a few days ago I bought a usb NES controller.

Still, it's ok that Nintendo Power is ending since we have the internet now.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 5:34am GMT on 30th Aug
Wait, wait, are you saying I can find the secret moves and fatalities for Mortal Kombat II on this... inter... net?

spaceghost said @ 9:16am GMT on 24th Aug
still have issues 1-100