Rumour: Nintendo Power ceasing publication

They became sort've pointless in the last ten years, anyway. Nintendo Power was great in the old days, when it was the source for concept art, hidden secrets and codes for games, maps and strategies that couldn't be found elsewhere, and interviews and insider information on what was coming out and little bits of information about games that were out.

But with the internet, these things are readily and more quickly available to anyone, for free. The only reason I buy paper magazines any more is for long airplane flights when I don't want to pay for instant wireless. The Sony and Microsoft mags have done a decent job of keeping their interviews, reviews, and previews under wraps until the magazine comes out, so I still sometimes get information faster by picking it up in a magazine, but Nintendo Power hasn't fallen into that category for years and years and years. I stopped reading right after the N64 came out.

... not to belittle the nostalgia, of course. I've been systematically downloading all the old volumes from Retro Mags and reading them on my iphone. My heart still fills up when I read the news that "Castlevania 3 is coming out!" or an interview with the Earthbound creator, or that segment that tells you how to get all the Red Jewels in Illusion of Gaia. Sigh....

Yeah, they're kind of an artifact of the 90s noawadays. They were a great publication when I was a kid, but print is pretty much dying slowly. Most of the smart magazines have gone cyber in some form--hell, even Fangoria and Rue Morgue are online these days.

My favorite issue of Nintendo Power: May 1992. Darkwing Duck, Wacky Races, Return of the Joker GB, "Link to the Past" comic.

Zipp
I'll have to look them up on Retro Mags. I used to have a few years worth of them, but when I got out of college and moved to my own place, I didn't have room for everything and since I was moving from SNES to PS1, I decided they were expendable.

Just out of nostalgia, I'd like to go through and read them again. Or, in lieu of actual reading, look at pictures and stuff. Enter a mid-life crisis where I pretend I'm 22 again, chilling in my room, smoking up and looking at NP pictures after the parents had gone to bed (AMAZING social life I had before moving out, eh?) or something like that.

I think the only NP stuff I still have are the special walkthrough books they came out with for SMB 3 and Super Mario World.

Enter a mid-life crisis where I pretend I'm 22 again, chilling in my room, smoking up and looking at NP pictures after the parents had gone to bed (AMAZING social life I had before moving out, eh?) or something like that.

Are you kidding me? That's my social life now.

The last use I got out of Nintendo Power was I brought them to the Wii line when the system was released and handed them out to everyone. We all had a blast reading through our childhood again. Then I let them keep them. The rest I burned or recycled, can't remember.

It was tough letting go, but they were pretty beat up, anyway. Pages were torn or ripped out, covers missing, and I even had a few issues which had misprinted and were upside down or had pages from the previous month in them.