Next week issue 80 of Nintendo Gamer will arrive in the shops. 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 focusing on 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 – with a fantastic, eye-catching image.
Subscribers should get a letter tomorrow, ahead of the final issue. It’ll explain what will happen to their subscriptions. Their magazine should follow, with 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. Like this one showing you how to paint a Spanish fresco in New Art Academy in less than 15 minutes.
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.
“After careful consideration we’ve taken the decision to close Nintendo Gamer magazine,” said Nintendo Gamer publisher Lee Nutter. “However, with Future’s ongoing strategy to drive digital growth across its international, digitally-focused brand business, the website, Nintendo-Gamer.net will continue as excitement builds ahead of Nintendo’s Wii U launch.”
The magazine is gone, but there will always be a place for Nintendo Gamer – it’s just in a different medium now. Over the next few months we’ll be sharing the best features and issues from the Nintendo Gamer vaults, dating all the way back through the magazine’s 20-year history. Please do follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook to ensure you don’t miss out on any of these articles.
On behalf of everyone who’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 it’s released on 6 September, and we hope you’ll continue to stick around the website as it continues to evolve.
Onwards and upwards.
