I remember when I was a kid and I got all my videogame info from gaming magazines. This was a time when the internet wasn't even used except by the military and the highest speed then was a paltry 56 kbps — yes, that's 56 kilobytes of data per second!
Now, one of videogame-dom's flagship print publications is about to cease publication and will join the ranks of the multitude of gaming magazines that have been "killed" by the internet.
If the headline wasn't clear enough, Nintendo Power is the magazine I'm talking about. Ars Technica is reporting that Future Publishing is planning to stop publishing the official Nintendo mag.
To put things in perspective, Nintendo Power started in 1988 (!) and is one (if not the) longest-running gaming mag in the world. However, don't make Future as the villain here; on the contrary, it seems Nintendo is the one who didn't want to continue the magazine.
According to Ars' sources, Nintendo was "uninterested in renewing the contract or in taking part in a number of digital initiatives that Future saw as necessary for the long-term health of the brand."
Currently, it's not known up to how long Nintendo Power is set to arrive on mailboxes or if it's monthly readership of 475,000 is to be compensated for its closure.
Needless to say, here's hoping that everyone gets to land on their feet real soon and that gamers everywhere won't forget the magazine as a videogame icon.