A staple of gaming culture during the 1990′s, Nintendo Power at one point was the magazine to own and subscribe to. It was plastered over every single Nintendo game sold in the instruction manuals, it was on all of the racks of the local game store and it was frequently brought to class to peruse over recess. In short time the iconic magazine may cease to exist as we used to remember it and become another piece of classic gaming nostalgia.
One of the longest-running magazines still alive today, Nintendo Power started way back in 1988 and quickly grew into a monthly publication direct from Nintendo through the 90′s. Nintendo is no longer interested in supporting the magazine, which has been contracted through Future Publishing since 2007.
Nintendo Power will still continue to operate for some time and its alleged that the last new issues will not want to be missed. Senior Editor Chris Hoffman tweeted “Thanks. We’ll try to make the last issues memorable.” (this post has now been deleted).
The legacy of the magazine is probably that it is one of the few pieces of gaming memorabilia that isn’t actually a game in its own right, but that people would readily agree was essential to the gaming scene back in the day. During a time when the internet was both nonexistent as we knew it today and places like GameFAQs were yet to become what they are now, it was that essential part of the gaming experience for finding walkthroughs, previews and full-color maps. Its easy to see how the young gaming masses, who were playing relatively tough games at a very young age, loved this publication to death.
Now that the magazine is on a course set to finally end, will you be picking up the last issues?