Official Nintendo Magazine is no more - The Bear and Badger

retroking1981

Looks like the end of the road for ONM and with it Nintendo magazines altogether.

I used to read it quite a bit in the 90s especially in its NMS guise.

This will make the first time there's no Nintendo magazine on the market.

With Nintendo being far smaller than Xbox and PS in the UK its no big surprise that they're the first to go.

With Official PS Magazine and Nintendo Power finishing in the States over the last couple of years, is this just a sign of the times?

Personally I'm surprised most game mags are still going what with the speed of news on the internet and many other advantages that come with that.

EvilRedEye

Just noticed this myself. Wow, no single-format Nintendo magazines at all now. Would have been unthinkable at one point. Wonder how bad sales got.

hylian_elf

Thought NMS was always rubbish. Crap paper, crap writing, and gave everything 90%+.

retroking1981

Mags are largely losing relevance but I still think they're important in terms of product promotion, especially with casual users.

That vicious circle of doom just keeps turning for Nintendo.

Think Super Play and N64 Magazine were the best Nintendo mags, Mean Machines and CVG were probably my favourite multiformats and Sega Power/OPM for those respective formats. I stopped buying Mags in about 2001/2.

Edge was obviously great at one time, be it the tail end of my youthful innocence and blind love for gaming.

The Daddy

My first games mag was TOTAL!

There should be a thread about that mag closing down cos it just disappeared one month.

retroking1981

I used to subscribe to that one. I remember getting a letter with the 'last' issue saying it was being discontinued.

They didn't even give it a final issue. That was poor by then though, I remember the last reviews being the launch N64 games. I know they gave Mario 64 100% and think they even gave Pilotwings something like 98%

mistercrayon

Shame. When it first became onm they really tried to be more high brow. Gave up after a few months.

Outlaw

I read somewhere that Nintendo are switching a lot of their focus to online and digital stuff...maybe something to do with it.

WorKid

Fuck mags.

JonB

The whole idea of official mags has never sat right, for obvious reasons. I gave up on ONM almost immediately when it emerged from the Mean Machines split, whereas I kept buying MM Sega for a good while. Fortunately, there was also Super Play.

The only official mag I bought for any length of time was the Playstation one in the PS1 era, because of the demo discs. The longer it went on the more dodgy the reviews became.

Outlaw

Yeah I never bought console specific mags, I know all companies are biased some way or another but an official console magazine was never going to be anything other than promotional material.

mistercrayon

On the other hand: super Mario stickers.

EvilRedEye

Was a bit embarrassing when ONM got the DS screens the wrong way round on every single screenshot of their Electroplankton review.

WorKid

Nowt wrong with official mags. They get the best exclusives and yeah, free guff.

hylian_elf

NMS gave the arcade Street Fighter 2 soundtrack on CD as a freebie . I still have it. Just for that I forgive them for being so rubbish.

Blue Swirl

I rather enjoyed ONM, especially back in the day of the N64. (Ignoring their irritating habit of using "yer" instead of "your".) You couldn't trust the reviews something chronic, but it was the best place to get Nintendo news earlier than other magazines. As has been mentioned, this is rendered obsolete by the 'net.

I picked up three or four issues in the last couple of years, mainly for articles on games that were coming up that I was excited about. You had to feel for the writers, it was getting thinner by the month, and each issue had more and more "here's what the staff at ONM would like to see in potential game X!". Every month was a slow news month, they had to come up with so much filler.

JonB

Even N64 had a problem with filling the pages, which is why they concentrated so much on challenges and stuff like that. So I'm surprised any Nintendo mag has managed to keep it going this long.

retroking1981

Thats true but those were pre-internet days. N64 was one of the more popular mags on the market at the time.

Blue Swirl

I was ranked 10th in a GoldenEye challenge they ran one month. Still have a copy of that issue somewhere. If I'd have got my time in a month earlier I would have been 4th. /claimtofame

JonB wrote:

Even N64 had a problem with filling the pages, which is why they concentrated so much on challenges and stuff like that.

Pretty much every magazine was like that back then. C&VG was brilliant, it had those bog-paper quality yellow pages in the middle which was just lists and lists of people's high scores across tons of games. There was a really active Steep Slope Sliders competition that ran for ages.

Blue Swirl

EvilRedEye wrote:

Just noticed this myself. Wow, no single-format Nintendo magazines at all now. Would have been unthinkable at one point. Wonder how bad sales got.

Nothing on the shelves, but for the hardcore there's still Nintendo Force.

Gonzo wrote:

Nintendo next, fuck yeah

Get out.

Blue Swirl

Outlaw wrote:

Yeah I never bought console specific mags, I know all companies are biased some way or another but an official console magazine was never going to be anything other than promotional material.

I absolutely loved the Official PlayStation Magazine back in the days of the original PS. They were quite fair with reviews, it was thick enough to beat a man to death with, and had some awesome demo discs.

Gor blimey, demo discs. Up hill, in the snow, both ways to school.

In other news, I'm basically talking to myself at this point, but fuck it, MATLAB shat itself and I'm bored at work so IT'S FORUM TIME, BABY.

Outlaw

WorKid wrote:

Nowt wrong with official mags. They get the best exclusives and yeah, free guff.

Except the complete lack of independent editorial control? I know all magazines have faults - a friend of mine did a 3 star review once which was sent back to be rewritten because "they're our cover stars this month and cover stars don't get less than 5 stars" - but official mags take it to the extreme. To put it back in musical terms it woud be like Warner or Universal having their own magazine - they're never going to give you much else than a press release dressed up as a review.

I did like the demo discs with OPM though.

retroking1981

How many mag are actually about these days?

I know future recently consolidated they official and unofficial Nintendo and Xbox mags into one with only the Xbox one still going obviously.

Do they still have Official and Unofficial PS mags?

What else do Future have outside Gamesmaster and Edge?

I forget who does GamesTM but the only other one they do is retrogamer right?

Diluted Dante

I actually enjoyed PSM (I will never call it OPM). The demo discs were ace. I liked when they were running out of games, so started sticking Net Yaroze ones on there. Plus, their demo discs got me an A in a presentation at school.

Diluted Dante

retroking1981 wrote:

How many mag are actually about these days? I know future recently consolidated they official and unofficial Nintendo and Xbox mags into one with only the Xbox one still going obviously. Do they still have Official and Unofficial PS mags? What else do Future have outside Gamesmaster and Edge? I forget who does GamesTM but the only other one they do is retrogamer right?

Imagine do GamesTM. As well as Retro Gamer, I think that Play is still on the go. The website certinaly is, which is more than can be said for Edge.

Future still run Edge, Gamesmaster, PC Gamer, PC Format, Official Playstation and Official Xbox. I think that's it is Nintendo is now dead.

Moot_Geeza

Sonic 3 was reviewed in The Official Sega Magazine three or four months before its PAL release, iirc. Edge still hasn't reviewed Destiny. Embargoes have kicked magazines in the teeth, and vast, patch-dependent online components have diminished the importance of day one scores anyway. At least two mags from Dante's list will follow suit in the next year or so, I'd wager.

A company like Nintendo, who (as discussed elsewhere recently) tend to set the bar higher than many for quality, should've bucked tradition and offered their official magazine review copies double early. How many flagship Nintendo titles end up with a poor Metacritic rating? Wouldn't have done them any harm to have their games reviewed in the issue before launch, however many weeks that might be, and may have kept the magazine afloat.

retroking1981

Diluted Dante wrote:

is Nintendo is now dead.

Yep, zero mags. As I said above mags aren't as important as they once were but they're still important in terms of product promotion, especially with casual users. I think this is quite a blow for Nintendo tbh.

Cheers, for clearing up the current mag market. There really aren't that many now. For consoles just 3 multiformats and 1 system specific each for Sony and MS.

Think about how many there were in the 90s.

retroking1981

Moot_Geeza wrote:

At least two mags from Dante's list will follow suit in the next year or so, I'd wager.

Defo.

My money would be on one of the multiformat ones and a PC one. Then again does PC Format deal more with hardware and software instead of games? If so I could see them living in harmony.

JonB

Moot_Geeza wrote:

A company like Nintendo, who (as discussed elsewhere recently) tend to set the bar higher than many for quality, should've bucked tradition and offered their official magazine review copies double early. How many flagship Nintendo titles end up with a poor Metacritic rating? Wouldn't have done them any harm to have their games reviewed in the issue before launch, however many weeks that might be, and may have kept the magazine afloat.

Truth is, that's still not a lot of games - just a few a year really with the current Nintendo hardware. Besides, it's perhaps better they don't stay afloat if it's going to be based on questionable over-hyped exclusive reviews.

retroking1981

Ooo I found sales data for the mags...

All sales are average per month in 2013 with the decline from the previous year.

Official Xbox 360 Magazine 35,961 -20.6%
Official Nintendo Magazine 18,743 -26.6%
PC Gamer 19,125 -10.1%
Playstation Official 27,758 -8.1%
Edge 14,351 -14.8%
Games Master 16,660 -10.5%
Games TM 12,619 0.1%

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/uk-magazines-lose-print-sales-average-63-cent-full-abc-breakdown-all-503-titles

Diluted Dante

These are the December 2013 ABC figures for Future. This includes digital editions:

Official Nintendo Magazine (no digital edition): 18,743
Edge: 20,485
Official Xbox:37,519
Games Master: 17,492
PC Gamer: 22,054
Official PlayStation: 29,973

Nintendo suffered the biggest drop (they all fell) at 26%. I'm surprised they didn't look at the others and do a digital edition for it. PlayStation was the only single digit percentage drop. Based on these numbers though, I reckon one of Games Master or Edge is for the chop soon. I predict Games Master, because it's numbers are lower, and Future talked about being happy with the rapid growth of Edge's digital version.

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