Nintendo Gamer is dead, Kazuo is one year closer to death - The Bear and Badger

EvilRedEye

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 became Nintendo Gamer, which was to become its final form.

Next week issue 80 of Nintendo Gamer will come out. 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 covering 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 â€“ with a fantastic cover.

Subscribers should get their copy of the final issue tomorrow. Itâ€™ll come with a letter explaining what will happen to their subscriptions, and itâ€™ll also have 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. 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.

â€œAfter careful consideration weâ€™ve taken the decision to close Nintendo Gamer magazine,â€ said Nintendo Gamer publisher Lee Nutter. â€œHowever, with Futureâ€™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 Nintendoâ€™s Wii U launch.â€

The magazine is gone, but there will always be a place for Nintendo Gamer â€“ itâ€™s just in a different medium now. Over the next few months weâ€™ll be sharing the best features and issues from the Nintendo Gamer vaults, dating all the way back through the magazineâ€™s 20-year history.

On behalf of everyone whoâ€™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 itâ€™s released on 6 September, and we hope youâ€™ll continue to stick around the website continues to evolve.

Onwards and upwards.

Chris Scullion
Online Editor
Nintendo-Gamer.net

regmcfly

Yep, knew this was coming. Sad times.

Olimite

Super Play was the best mag ever.

I'd say this was only the beginning of the end of print media.

EvilRedEye

I'd heard it hadn't been selling well. Seems very shortsighted though. They revamped it in the middle of a generational lull and then didn't give it time for the Wii U to launch and the 3DS to take off properly.

I_R

Sad, but it's beginning to look inevitable that print magazines will all die in the near future.

regmcfly

A lot of the staff have been re homed at ONM I think, so it's not too dark.

Unlikely

I_R wrote:

Sad, but it's beginning to look inevitable that print magazines will all die in the near future.

With "near future" ambiguous it's difficult to be sure, but I think that's probably a bit of a gloomy outlook.Â Porn mags still get published, and the Internet's been around for a fair while now.

It's perhaps a generational thingy though - those who grow up with huge amounts of content online perhaps never see the need for printed stuff.Â Their loss, but eventually, possibly, also ours.

djchump

Olimite wrote:

Super Play was the best mag ever. I'd say this was only the beginning of the end of print media.

Negatory: Zero was the best games mag ever.

Moot_Geeza

djchump wrote:

Super Play was the best mag ever. I'd say this was only the beginning of the end of print media.

Negatory: Zero was the best games mag ever.

I think you'll find Maximum deserves that accolade.

Olimite

Never heard of it.

EvilRedEye

I think there are other factors than just the death of print. They relaunched the magazine in the middle of bleak economic times and in the middle of a generational transition. I would have supported the magazine more had I not been unemployed, and would have made more of an effort to support it if the consoles it covered were growing and peaking. As it is, I don't have the money to throw around on multiple magazines, especially a single-format one in the middle of a generational transition. They didn't give the relaunched mag a year, and killed it with a new Nintendo console launching less than a handful of months away.

davyK

I have fond memories of Super Play. It was an excellent magazine and it was out at a great time in my life which helps. I may buy the final issue for old times sake. Hope there's lots of indulgent list-me-dos in it.

hylian_elf

Moot_Geeza wrote:

djchump wrote:

Super Play was the best mag ever. I'd say this was only the beginning of the end of print media.

Negatory: Zero was the best games mag ever.

I think you'll find Maximum deserves that accolade.

Maximum was indeed very good, but I'm a Super Play fanboy. Still have all my issues, will keep them. Gonna get rid of Edge, though.

beano

I personified the thread title too much.

I_R

Unlikely wrote:

I_R wrote:

Sad, but it's beginning to look inevitable that print magazines will all die in the near future.

With "near future" ambiguous it's difficult to be sure, but I think that's probably a bit of a gloomy outlook.Â Porn mags still get published, and the Internet's been around for a fair while now. It's perhaps a generational thingy though - those who grow up with huge amounts of content online perhaps never see the need for printed stuff.Â Their loss, but eventually, possibly, also ours.

We're on dangerous ground, but I couldn't tell you the last time I saw a porn mag.

I suppose print has some sort of future. There will be survivors, but in past generations when one title like this disappeared, someone else would jump in with a replacement. I can't see that happening this time.

Mod74

I don't think is print is dead in general, but I think it is dead for videogame magazines. The medium they cover just doesn't lend itself to a monthly analogue format. Or rather the medium lends itself much better to web and mobile/tablet applications.

You don't want to see screenshots you want video, you don't want to read a review 2 or 3 weeks after a game comes out you want it 2 or 3 days before it comes out. You don't want to read about a flash game you want to click a link and play it.

Other magazine topics are I think are a bit less susceptible to the demand for instant information, or are much more suited to longer thought pieces on a monthly basis.

Brooks

Super Play was the mag with the extensive walkthroughs to JRPGs that never actually came out in the UK. That's all I really recall of it beyond the in-house manga covers.

Had no idea it was still around in some guise.

mk64

Could a gaming mag switch to a smaller weekly segment like front?

Paul the sparky

Does enough happen in a week to fill a mag?

I think the single format mags are going to struggle, but if they die out then stuff like Edge will be more likely to survive.

retroking1981

Moot_Geeza wrote:

djchump wrote:

Super Play was the best mag ever. I'd say this was only the beginning of the end of print media.

Negatory: Zero was the best games mag ever.

I think you'll find Maximum deserves that accolade.

Ahem...

with the CVG 5/5 era not far behind.

R.I.P. Nintendo Gamer, I was a subscriber back in the Super Play/N64 Magazine era, stopped getting it in the early 2000s. Not because of the quality dropping but more to do with the 90s being my zenith for gaming.

That plus like many have stated here, the internet is making print a bit of a dinosaur for gaming media.

Paul the sparky

WTF is a GX4000?

Diluted Dante

I_R wrote:

We're on dangerous ground, but I couldn't tell you the last time I saw a porn mag.

Do you not have shops near you?

@ Mod, I don't think you speak for everyone there. I certainly don't want video most of the time. Not for an actual serious review anyway, Zero Punctuation would be the most I'd want. As far as reviews go, since I don't use them to inform buying decisions, I don't really mind if it's a couple of weeks after it came out. Especially when it's on a format I don't have.

I'd make the argument that football is in exactly the same position as video games in respect to magazines, but that doesn't stop people buying Four Four Two, World Soccer and When Saturday Comes, let alone the club specific ones.

retroking1981

@Paulthesparky A shitty 8Bit Amstrad console version of their CPC computer

FranticPea

There's still a huge stack of Mean Machines and Your Sinclairs in my parents loft. And Beanos.

EvilRedEye

I was trying to date when I started gaming so I looked at the copy of Mean Machines Sega I have and there's no date on it and all the content seems to come from different times. I was tempted to tweet the dude who was the editor at the time and berate him for his date-related fuck-up.

I_R

Diluted Dante wrote:

I_R wrote:

We're on dangerous ground, but I couldn't tell you the last time I saw a porn mag.

Do you not have shops near you?

You make it sound like you've got a lot of bad ones near you.

retroking1981

EvilRedEye wrote:

I was trying to date when I started gaming so I looked at the copy of Mean Machines Sega I have and there's no date on it and all the content seems to come from different times. I was tempted to tweet the dude who was the editor at the time and berate him for his date-related fuck-up.

If I remember correctly the Mean Machines Mags have the date on the contents page? I could be wrong though

Paul the sparky

I_R wrote:

Diluted Dante wrote:

I_R wrote:

We're on dangerous ground, but I couldn't tell you the last time I saw a porn mag.

Do you not have shops near you?

You make it sound like you've got a lot of bad ones near you.

I think you're protesting a little too much here Iain. It's nowt to be ashamed of you know.

Brooks

Pretty glum ninja turtle right there.

I_R

Paul the sparky wrote:

I think you're protesting a little too much here Iain. It's nowt to be ashamed of you know.

It really is if you've got the internet.

EvilRedEye

retroking1981 wrote:

EvilRedEye wrote:

I was trying to date when I started gaming so I looked at the copy of Mean Machines Sega I have and there's no date on it and all the content seems to come from different times. I was tempted to tweet the dude who was the editor at the time and berate him for his date-related fuck-up.

If I remember correctly the Mean Machines Mags have the date on the contents page? I could be wrong though

It's fucking weird, it could be from February 1993 or February 1994 but it just seems wrong for both. I'm so fucking confused.

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