Nintendo Gamer to Close

[Ike]

Seems August 2012 is the month of Nintendo Magazine deaths following the closing of Nintendo Power, seems Nintendo Gamer have printed their last issue

 

On Thursday 1 October 1992, the first issue of Super Play arrived in shops throughout Britain. Published by Future Publishing, Super Play claimed to be the first British magazine that not only focused mainly on Nintendo games but also unashamedly covered grey imports, anime and other subjects not usually covered in magazines at the time.

 

In the twenty years that followed Super Play developed a huge cult following, evolving over the years with the release of each new Nintendo system. As the Nintendo 64 approached it became N64 Magazine, later becoming NGC when the GameCube arrived. Then, with the launch of the Wii it became N-Gamer, which later was revamped and transformed into Nintendo Gamer, which was to become its final form.

 

Next week issue 80 of Nintendo Gamer will arrive in the shops. It will be the final issue of the magazine, ending a history of more than 20 years of independent Nintendo magazine coverage from Future Publishing. The final issue is a special tribute issue, containing a feature focusing on every cover and iteration of the magazine from that first issue of Super Play all the way up to 2012.

 

It will also feature a special cover illustrated by Wil Overton, the long-time illustrator who created all the amazing cover art in Super Play and N64 Magazine and returns to end the magazine the same way it began – with a fantastic, eye-catching image.

 

Subscribers should get a letter tomorrow, ahead of the final issue. It’ll explain what will happen to their subscriptions. Their magazine should follow, with an exclusive subscriber-only cover, again illustrated by Wil Overton. For non-subscribers, the issue is on sale next week, 6 September.

 

Although as of next week the Nintendo Gamer magazine is dead, the website will continue to live on. Nintendo-Gamer.net will continue to provide you with Nintendo news, reviews and features with that same sense of humour and unmatched passion for Nintendo games that made the magazine so popular over the past two decades. Like this one showing you how to paint a Spanish fresco in New Art Academy in less than 15 minutes.

 

As the Online Editor of Nintendo Gamer it is a great privilege to be able to keep the name going and I hope that the site can continue to further develop your love for Nintendo in the same way that first issue of Super Play did for me back when I was nine years old.

 

“After careful consideration we’ve taken the decision to close Nintendo Gamer magazine,” said Nintendo Gamer publisher Lee Nutter. “However, with Future’s ongoing strategy to drive digital growth across its international, digitally-focussed brand business, the website, Nintendo-Gamer.net will continue as excitement builds ahead of Nintendo’s Wii U launch.”

 

The magazine is gone, but there will always be a place for Nintendo Gamer – it’s just in a different medium now. Over the next few months we’ll be sharing the best features and issues from the Nintendo Gamer vaults, dating all the way back through the magazine’s 20-year history. Please do follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook to ensure you don’t miss out on any of these articles.

 

On behalf of everyone who’s ever written a word, designed a page, checked some text, written a caption or reviewed a game for Nintendo Gamer, thank you so much for reading the magazine. Please do buy the final issue when it’s released on 6 September, and we hope you’ll continue to stick around the website continues to evolve.

 

Onwards and upwards.

 

Chris Scullion

Online Editor

Nintendo-Gamer.net

 

Note: If you have any comments, thoughts or memories of Nintendo Gamer, N-Gamer, NGC, N64 Magazine or Super Play, please email them to [email protected] with the subject heading “Nintendo Gamer memories”. We’ll be posting the best of your tributes on the site over the weekend.

 

Been a subscriber since NGC days (which was also a birthday gift) and they have only recently re-branded from NGamer. Probably explains why Matthew Castle jumped ship to OMN :P Personally I won't be changing my subscription which is a shame. Guess it's just the occasional Retro Gamer for me now. Does solve my spacing issue though :P

 

Nice to see them making jokes on Twitter though.

[bob]

I have Issues 24 - 105-ish of N64 magazine somewhere. It was an awesome mag. Full of humour and awesome reviews. To be honest i thought it had folded long ago, but it's a shame to hear that it is now.

 

I used to love the reviews page where all the staff would sit on a sofa for a photo, and then they would take the piss out of each other. Just seemed like an amazing place to work...

[Hero-of-Time]

Sad news indeed. I loved N64 back in the day, their writing was hilarious.

 

I suppose this was always going to happen. The internet gets people news faster and it doesn't help that Nintendo are very secretive about their projects so magazines can't even get exclusives anymore. Add to the fact that the release list has been pretty sparse for Nintendo this year, as I said, it was always gonna happen.

 

I think you have a better chance of survival as a magazine if you are multiformat rather than exclusive.

[Helmsly]

I'm sad its coming to an end, I absolutely loved their sense of humour and how they covered Nintendo over the years. I guess this is eventually going to happen to all video game magazines as its just much easier to get infomation online, even the almighty Nintendo Power in america is coming to an end. But at least it will continue as the website.

 

 

I've been reading this magazine since it was Super Play and N64 magazine. I made a little topic about old video game magazines a year ago and talked about Superplay there: http://www.n-europe.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31761

Edited August 31, 2012 by Helmsly

[peterl0]

Yes, saw ths earlier and am gutted.

I also started in the super play years and have more or less bought every issue.

 

Sad thing is, the recent relaunch of ngamer made or a very good read - even though there have been very few Nintendo games to talk about!

 

[bob]

I have Issues 24 - 105-ish of N64 magazine somewhere. It was an awesome mag. Full of humour and awesome reviews. To be honest i thought it had folded long ago, but it's a shame to hear that it is now.

 

I used to love the reviews page where all the staff would sit on a sofa for a photo, and then they would take the piss out of each other. Just seemed like an amazing place to work...

[gaggle64]

I had a subscription to them way back when they were called N64 and then NGC then Ngamer for a time - manage to get few letters and, spoofy TOP 5s and other odds and ends published in them. The fact that they published those small things helps sustain my need to keep writing. They were great mag, funny irreverent and always honest with their reviews, occasionally even in the face of public opinion. I see on their site they haven't lost that. The more things change the more they stay the same, and sometimes that's a good thing.

[Josh64]

This is terrible news, it feels like I've lost an old friend. It had such a great community feel that none of the others did. It's the first thing I properly started reading and I started to really enjoy my English lessons because of it.

 

I even made a lame Nintendo website on freewebs with some of my friends back in school :p

 

I've posted the news on the front page, I tried not to get too carried away :p

http://www.n-europe.com/news/nintendo-gamer-finishes-after-20-years

[Jimbob]

Such a shame indeed, a great magazine indeed. Had a subscription from the N64 days right to the NGamer days. I suppose one of the main reasons i liked it was that the reviews were honest, unbiased (compared to the official magazines views (influenced i believe by the company)) and overall a great read. I did write in and email several times, with only one or two making the mag.

 

A sad day indeed, both Power and Gamer being great mags and independent as well.

 

As it's been said, best chance of survival these days is being multi-format really.

[EEVILMURRAY]

Being cancelled so soon before the Wii U comes out, this doesn't make sense. I understand that a publication may be shut down due to poor circulation, but when an event comes along which is sure to generate significant sales it seems an unusual moment to cease production.

 

It's like if Panini stopped making sticker albums before the next football season.

[Jonnas]

I recall a couple of British publications that made it to a kiosk I knew, several years ago. NGC was "the good one" (CUBE being the one I hated), so I guess this is sad news regarding something I used to know.

 

Really, I'm sad in general that magazines keep dying.

[bob]

Can i just explain that I posted the same comment in both threads, expecting one of them to be locked, and then they just got joined together, so it looks like i posted the same thing twice while having a senile moment.

 

This is not the case.

[Zechs Merquise]

Whilst I'm sad that magazines keep dying - I'm one who's guilty of killing them! I always used to buy one or more Nintendo mags. Now I buy none, yet I still play as much if not more than I used to. It's just the reality of the internet.

 

I remember when magazines would have an exclusive review, preview or piece of killer news that would literally make you want to buy the mag to read it.

 

By the time a magazine is printed now the news has already broken elsewhere and other sites have already released their previews or reviews. What's more anything of genuine interest always pops up as scans anyway.

 

It is a sad time, I used to read N64 religiously, but I bet we've all played our part in the demise of these fine publications.

Edited August 31, 2012 by Zechs Merquise

[Helmsly]

Nintendo Gamer have started a feature looking back on old issues of their magazines, starting with Super Play Issue 1:

 

http://www.nintendo-gamer.net/2012/09/03/the-vault-super-play-issue-1/

[Ike]

Got my final issue today *sniffle* I'll give ONM a shot since they've automatically transferred me over since they are apparently going to have a redesign so I'll see if that improves the magazine.

[killer kirby]

As much as it is awesome that the internet can provide for us fast news, connection between gamers which can help one another out in a game or argue against why they love a certain game. Magazines will always have a special place in my heart especially the older ones where they had interviews with game designers, writing funny articles, getting special stuff in magazines when you buy it, and artwork that looks like it was made just for the magazine. It was always awesome to wait every month for another issue to see what new news there was for games on our favorite system.

 

Internet, created a new form of entertainment yet destroyed a another which was always deer to me.

[bob]

[LegoMan1031]

I used to love this magazine

 

I remember the N64 and gamecube days in particular, where I couldn't wait to see a score they gave a game that I was interested in. I remember going town with @Aneres11 just to buy the latest mag.

 

During the Wii days I had been subscribed to them for a long time but I didn't pay as much attention to them as I used to, just flicking through it rather than reading it fully like I used too.

[jayseven]

My game boy camera picture was printed in one of teh N64 issues. I think it was issue #69 but I can't really guarentee this off the top of my head. I recently had to do a clear out of my mags from issue #17 up to when they changed to NGC, then they made the mags smaller (the massive size never made sense). The free gifts tehy did with N64 were amazing - fridge magnets, trumps cards, posters by mumblemumblemumble who went to work with Rare... The orange VHS with GC footage of eternal darkness (my friends couldn't believe the [cg] graphics of teh bit with the flies) and luigi's mansion and kameo and that Silicon Knights game that they were doing alongside eternal darkness...

 

I would read it from beginning to end religiously each month.

[nekunando]

I would read it from beginning to end religiously each month.

 

..but did you ever solve Lex Luthor's maze..?

[-Dem0-]

Didn't know where to put this.

His letter:

"To The Honorable Staff of Nintendo Power,

 

I write this letter to you with a deep melancholy. I refused to believe the rumors that you were closing down. Then, cold confirmation that you wouldn’t be there for me after December. Anger took me, and tears fell whenever I remembered a crucial fact. The fact that you and your magazine have meant so much to me throughout my whole life. I was four when the first issue came out, and I had just played Zelda II for the first time. Though I could barely read, the bright pictures and maps in your magazine helped me make it through the mazes of Death Mountain and the mysteries of the secret town of Kasuto. I wanted to reach out; to help. Hold a subscription drive, write letters to NCL, get the help of Operation Rainfall and Starmen.net. I wanted to do something for you after all you’ve done for me.

 

The most exciting piece of mail I’ve received every month, to this day, has always been Nintendo Power. It brings me so much joy to see what’s on the cover and what’s getting reviewed. I should say it brings me that joy twice a month, as I’m always excited for taking the power polls, too. My friends and I still pull out old issues for help with retro games (of which I am a huge collector), like when we played through Young Merlin for laughs on my beloved Super Nintendo. I’m only missing a few issues in the entire run of the magazine.

 

In all the tough parts of my life, Nintendo, and Nintendo Power, were always there for me. When I didn’t think I could make it in 6th grade, and thought about ending it all, NP saved me with news of Super Mario 64 and Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire. When my Dad said he was getting remarried and my life fell into despair, NP was there with previews of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and hope for the future. And as an adult, after wanting to give up after getting laid off multiple times as an art teacher, NP made me feel like a kid again with news of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

 

Though sure, I check Nintendo blogs obsessively, you hold a special place in my heart. I don’t want endless bright screens of every little piece of news when I can have a beautiful printed magazine to pore over. Even when news and screenshots from Nintendo Power are posted online, I always to refuse to read those articles until I’ve received my issue and can read it myself, straight from the source. Honestly, I’m terribly depressed about a world without you. I proudly wear my Nintendo Power Player shirt (a replica, as my original fell apart from years of wear and tear.)

 

I’m including a painting I started working on in August as soon as I found out the news about the magazine ending. I poured my heart and soul into it. It’s the expression of all the feelings I’ve had, tempered with the sadness of losing you this December. It was really hard getting it done on time, as I work two jobs and often don’t have the time or energy after work. I pray that you will print it, and this letter, in one of your final issues. None of my letters as a kid made it into the magazine, but you were always kind enough to write back to me either way. Thank you for that. Thank you for everything.

 

Much love,

 

Bry Sharland"