The Rebirth of Nintendo Power
Friday, August 1st, 2008 at 4:30pm by Jack
I spent the better part of the past 15 minutes on the Nintendo Power subscription page, my mouse cursor hovering over the place order arrow button, my mind unsure of how my body got to be where it was, or why.
The catalyst for this weird stage of events was a cool article at Aeropause, which actually examines the dying “hardcore” gaming mag industry as a whole, but has a few choice words of encouragement for Nintendo Power. Put simply, the “popular” gaming mags today are really only popular, on average, with a certain type of person, and as such they cater to games that the audience wants to hear about. It makes business sense for now, but unfortunately for them (and for many gaming blogs today, I might add), it’s indicative of the ostrich head-in-the-sand mentality that will ultimately doom them (or at least lead to massive “restructuring,” i.e. “layoffs.”).
As their audience loses the power they once had over the direction of the industry, so to will they lose their influence as publications. Nintendo Power, however, is now positioned to be THE gaming mag for the mass market video games industry, complete with exclusives (some even faster than the Net), commentary on all games of all types, and the Nintendo Power brand to back it up. Meanwhile, advertisers will abandon the dead weight, and flock to the mag with the most presence and authority, as advertisers are wont to do. Advertising is about eye balls, after all, and Nintendo has more of them.
In light of all this I kept asking myself a simple question. It was wild, and it was incredibly retro 1990′s of me to ask, but I asked anyway. Should I subscribe to Nintendo Power? Again?
August 1st, 2008 at 4:43 pm
I love Nintendo Power. It’s one of my favorite mags, they will have coverage on nearly any game I can think of. It may not be huge or as much as you want at times, but they will not skip over a good game. I new about Etrian Oddyssey quite a while before other mags first showed it in their previews or reviews.
August 1st, 2008 at 4:46 pm
I just read that article on Aeropause, too. And I completely agree with his assessment of “enthusiast” mags like GI and EGM. I don’t bother with them anymore, even to get that 10% discount card from Gamestop.
NP seems to skew a little older. Many of the staff have been there since the beginning, and the magazine has grown-up with the industry. While the switch to Future US was a little jarring, I still think NP is the most mature gaming magazine being printed. Ironic.
GI and EGM and Gamepro read like they are written by a bunch of annoying frat boys; the same audience that G4 seems intent on capturing. Thier Nintendo coverage is sparse, and rarely favorable. Every game they rave about has a gun pointing up from the lower right corner of the screen.
G4 and GI and Destructoid have tried to create a culture of “geek chic!” Products like Axe perpetuate the illusion. And the audience buys into it. Like G4′s ad for Comic-Con coverage, which narrates the adventures of the “coolest geek in the world” who “made love to 4 different women while waiting in line to see Lord of the Rings” or something equally asinine. Yet, their audience are the same social misfits that gamers have always been portrayed as.
Note to AOTS producers…DROP THE VIRTUAL AUDIENCE SEGMENTS!!!! The reality of your audience is ruining your manufactured image.
Wow, tangent. What I meant to say was, “Yes, you should subscribe to Nintendo Power!”
August 1st, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Nintendo power don’t deserve to exist after their extremely ignorant ‘review’ of okami.
August 1st, 2008 at 5:20 pm
If it’s not a financial burden, than why not. In fact you could probably even call it research money, since you will undoubtedly get some good info or ideas which you could related to us here at Infendo.
August 1st, 2008 at 5:24 pm
I’ve been wondering the same thing myself – but it’s not present on ANY local newsstands! I want to pick up a recent issue to see if I still like the magazine, but i cant find it anywhere.
Reynard, what did they say that was so “ignorant?” I do recall them recommending the non wii version, but I didn’t read the actual article myself. (ALthough I admit, that’s a weird suggestion for a NINTENDO magazine to make.)
I can’t get interested in Okami. It looks too much like Twilight Princess, which was pretty Mediocre for a Zelda game. (I seem to be the only person that was bored with Twilight Princess. It was dull, uninspired, and lame. The graphics were okay I guess, but beh. Boring. I’d rather play Zelda II: Adventure of LInk)
August 1st, 2008 at 5:50 pm
I find that the magazine, although likely by no fault of their own, has fallen into covering mainly shovelware titles that everyone (likely even the staff) know will suck.
August 1st, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Seaniccus: they said that the controls were bad, telling people they’d best stick to the rosaries ‘or ‘whip’ weapons as they called them. Stating the timing was just too difficult with any other weapon.
I know the waggle-style isn’t for everyone, but the weapon timing is /easy/. It flows nicely and feels very tactile with just a little practice, the only way anyone could find the timing ‘too hard’ for the weapons is if they lack any sense of coordination or simply didn’t care for the game enough to spend a few minutes learning it.
The only genuine control complaint can be levelled at the nunchuk dodges, a move which, after having just finished the game 100%, was entirely redundant anyway.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:20 pm
while I disagree with the Okami review, keep in mind it was only one staff member that reviewed the game and it was his opinion. I would hope that if one of the other guys at NP wrote the review the score would be much higher.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:24 pm
I have a subscription to NP. I wouldn’t recommend it. Not enough good articles to cover one visit to the John.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:25 pm
I’ve never liked NP. I used to have a subscription, but not anymore, they are alright, but being a Nintendo magazine means one thing: Biasism. Always. You see, if a game sucks, Nintendo Power won’t tell you. They’ll just say “here’s what you can do in the game, we don’t like it very much, but some people might like it”. That’s what they’ll say to a completely failed shovelware title that deserves the furnace.
I also don’t have a subscription because…well, the Net. I mean, everything you can find there will be here, on the internet! Magazines in general are a dying breed thanks to the internet. In the 90′s, you would see people reading magazines in waiting rooms. Now, you see people texting, and surfing youtube with their new Iphones.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:05 pm
In the last three or four issues, the quality shot way up. They are starting to present real scoops again causing blogs (Infendo included) to use them as sources for new material. Considering the lead time for printing, that’s an impressive feat!
Add in their developer interviews and other creative articles, it’s a must have. I just renewed my subscription last week!
August 1st, 2008 at 10:12 pm
If the retro stuff does make a come back full force I’ll get a subscription simple because it will be the best way to hear about those games. The new Press out there doesn’t always understand these games. EGM use to but those times have pasted. The internet is good but I’m getting tired of all the Wii hate online even in the news. Every one sounds like fox news all of a sudden!
August 2nd, 2008 at 12:49 am
Nintendo Power is relentlessly focused on games — literally, there is no editorializing, tabloidish, echochamber-type commentary. Just the games. The writing is noticeably better than select enthusiast publications, and what they lack in depth of coverage, they make up for in breadth.
August 2nd, 2008 at 2:19 am
Let’s do it baby, we can make the world say wii, we can make the world fell in love again.
August 2nd, 2008 at 12:43 pm
No, Jack, you could just get your gaming news off of gaming sites like Infendo . . . wait a sec. Oh now I see what you mean.
August 2nd, 2008 at 2:00 pm
While Nintendo Power is pretty much bathroom reading at this point (and I get maybe 6 or 7 trips out of each issue, thanks, as opposed to 3 or 4 for EGM,) it’s weird to me that the magazine that used to be the most “kiddie” and goofy now seems the least aimed at kids.
They seldom talk about video game characters as though they’re real people any more, they’re not afraid to give games a 4.0 or lower if they’re shovelware crap, and as someone up above mentioned, they don’t editorialize. They have interviews with developers that are more in-depth than what you’ll find on the net, and while I still regard them with the same sort of skepticism that I might reserve for Pravda, they’re just not the Nintendo fan club newsletter that they were for so much of their life.
Yes, they gave Okami a lower review than it deserved, but do you remember WHY they did that? It was because the reviewer had already played the PS2 version…. and assumed his readers had done the same! Nintendo Power acknowledging that its readers might also own another system? Could you imagine them doing that even in 2003, at Nintendo’s lowest ebb? They’re becoming more inclusive even as EGM and GI become more balkanized.
Of course, that new independence came with the cost of more advertising and fewer pages of content, but I’d rather have less content than stupid content.
August 2nd, 2008 at 2:25 pm
i want to add my love for nintendo power. I have had it since the beginning. Still have most of the issues, but then i am a collector.
It has had its low points, but one cool thing is that it has always been run by people that continually test new ways of running the magazine, from design to features, and while i may have disagreed with decisions at times, i think highly of them for it. They have definitely been back to top form in the last 2 years.
I still enjoy reading it when it comes in, and theres something about glossy pictures and reading good text in your hand as opposed to on a bright screen. Plus they have enough of their own unique things in the mag that you dont get online to make it worth it. They also have good opinions I find, a broader appreciation of gaming then most other gaming journalism.
worth keeping around.
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:49 pm
The only thing that really bugged me about them is when they previewed the first Sonic game for the Wii. It was touted as amazing, but it turned out to be awful. I always wondered what happened there.
August 3rd, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Thanks for the link to my article. I’m also fond of Nintendo Power, and would recommend you pick up a subscription, Jack. Look around a little online, you can get a year of it for less than $5.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:34 am
I evaluate a magazine by its game reviews more than anything else, and that’s where I find Nintendo Power’s weakness… Their reviews are usually way off the mark in their scores, and the description of the games is a bit too subjective for me. In contrast, I prefer Game Informer’s reviews.
But I like that they don’t focus on “previews” or new game “announcements” that are not going to see the light of day in one or two years. Ironically, that’s what I hate about magazines like Game Informer.
August 4th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Well, Jack, did you resubscribe or what?
August 4th, 2008 at 11:12 am
I think I might, David. I was away this weekend, but checked all these comments via my shiny new phone, and I’m going to pull the trigger.
August 5th, 2008 at 2:38 am
I still love Nintendo Power, but there are some better gaming magazines out there. I prefer Game Informer personally.