Nintendo Power Shutting Down

If you happen to feel a bit ill today, and you also happen to be a console gamer from the 90s, it could be that a part of your childhood has now been interrupted: Nintendo Power is shutting down. That’s right, the once go-to source for all things Nintendo is going to cease publishing after having been produced for over 24 years. If you owned an NES, SNES or maybe even an N64, chances are good you were exposed to Nintendo Power, and for good reason.

Nintendo Power was an interesting magazine first and foremost because of its focus. It wasn’t like an EGM or Gamepro where multiple consoles were focused on; if you were devoted to Nintendo, there was no better magazine than Nintendo Power. Each issue had lots of game updates, letters from the fans, a high scores list (though I am not sure that existed once the SNES era began) and even small guides for some games, or certain levels from select games.

One of the reasons so many people ended up with a subscription to Nintendo Power is that the value was good. I don’t remember prices off-hand, but it was only a few dollars per issue, and at least in our household, everyone ended up looking through it. Better still, Nintendo was in the habit of giving a gift with a new or renewed subscription, such as a full strategy guide for a game (which were awesome back then; remember this is before or near the infancy of the Internet), adding to the overall value.

For those looking to relive Nintendo Power a bit, I recommend looking at most of the old covers at Zelda Dungeon.net, and if you’re not adverse to curse words, I highly recommend this video from the Angry Video Game Nerd, where he revisits the iconic mag.

RIP, Nintendo Power. You will be missed! Even though you never returned the manila envelope backgrounds for the classified section that fans never ceased to request.