In what can only be described as an awesome move, Nintendo has made a decision to celebrate the mini Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition by uploading the first thirteen years of Nintendo Power to the internet, free to all who want them via the internet archive. As circulation grew, producing a newsletter grew too costly, so Minoru Arakawa, then-president of Nintendo of America, tapped marketing whiz Gail Tilden and game tester Howard Phillips to convert the newsletter into a magazine.
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Starting with a huge walkthrough of Super Mario 2 (my favorite in the series; come at me), the magazines quickly get into Castlevania and Ninja Gaiden(!) before wrapping it up in 2001 with a spread on the Game Boy Advanced. Nintendo Power remains one of the most important gaming magazines that has ever been published, and the joy of flipping through its colorful pages is just as strong as ever.
Nintendo once used a historical promotional tactic with the magazine. Since the American release of the game didn’t so well financially, Nintendo figured this would be a good way to get rid of unsold merchandise. The magazine’s last issue featured an homage to the original issue’s cover.
Sadly, Nintendo Power ceased publishing in 2012 and, like most pre-internet ephemera, seemed doomed to be forgotten.
The Internet Archive has archived issues 1 to 145.
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As you’ll see, early issues of Nintendo Power were as much strategy guide as they were informative magazine about the gaming industry (at least, as it pertains to Nintendo).
