Nintendo Power
Nintendo's official magazine and the pre-internet bible for stuck kids everywhere. Nintendo Power came packed with glossy fold-out maps, pull-out strategy guides, previews of games you couldn't afford yet, and the exact secret you needed to get past that one impossible level.
Nintendo Power published its first issue in July/August 1988, founded by Nintendo of America marketing manager Gail Tilden. It grew out of the free Nintendo Fun Club News, a members' newsletter that ran seven issues before being upgraded into a full glossy magazine you could subscribe to — often as a perk of joining Nintendo's club.
In an era before walkthroughs were a search away, the magazine was the authority. It ran detailed level maps you could fold out beside the TV, step-by-step strategy guides, early previews and reviews, reader-drawn art, and the mascot Nester, who starred in the "Howard and Nester" comic. For a lot of kids it was the first magazine that was truly theirs, and getting unstuck meant flipping to the right page rather than asking a friend.
Nintendo handed publishing off to Future US in 2007 and then declined to renew the license, ending the run — circulation still stood around 475,000 in the magazine's final year. The final issue, number 285, shipped December 11, 2012 — 24 years after the first — closing out one of the defining artifacts of growing up a gamer.
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