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Nintendo Power gets a new publisher
Nintendo Power is getting a new publisher, it would seem, based on a job listing posted by Nintendo. The job listing is for a Licensing Manager, which describes that Future US will be taking over publishing duties for the mag. The entirety of the job description reads: Manages monthly Nintendo Power Magazine licensed to the new publisher, Future US Maintains close communication with Future US regarding editorial plan, production plan, and marketing plan Provides necessary material and/or information Manages approval process of magazine content Oversees the approval process with Future US, will be the point person between Future US and Nintendo of America Inc (NOA) Point of contact for requests for access to software, assets, or interview possibilities Coordination of annual marketing plan support program for Nintendo Power Often necessary to change duties, projects or direction on short notice Heavy work volume, fast-paced environment with fluctuating production requirements Periodic adjustments to work schedule and/or usual hours may be required Up to 15% travel [Via NeoGAF]
PlayStation magazines lose readership compared to Xbox and Nintendo
Future, a large publisher of gaming magazines in Europe, has posted some interesting figures regarding the performance of their platform-specific periodicals. The Official Xbox 360 magazine has increased its circulation 17%, from 56k to almost 66k for the six months ending December 2006. The Official Nintendo magazine has seen about a 12% rise in circulation, with numbers growing from about 43k to 48k.However, their PlayStation publications have been suffering. The Official PlayStation numbers have dropped about 42%, down to 44,200 from 76,300. Does this mean that interest in Sony's platform is declining?Not necessarily. These numbers were calculated before PS3 gained momentum. Also, the magazine's PS2 focus may be hurting it, as that platform starts its slow move into retirement. As the PlayStation library of games finally grows, we're willing to bet that magazine sales will increase in tandem. Also, a look at our readership shows that there is a huge demand for PS3 coverage -- demand that has increased significantly since E3 and Sony's price drop. It's undeniable that Future will most likely experience the same surge.
New Mario Galaxy scans show Boo costume, cubed planets
New scans from the latest issue of Famitsu have popped up on the NeoGAF forums with new pictures and information on Super Mario Galaxy (which, as we all know, was originally just two Super Mario Star Clusters duct-taped together). Shown in the new scans are cube- and torus-shaped planets, Mario in his bee costume and also a few images of Mario as a Boo. According to translations found on Go Nintendo, Bee Mario can use his stinger and Boo Mario will be left alone by other Boos (though one of the Boo Mario images show him apparently getting hurt by another Boo). Also according to the translations -- we haven't verified the information ourselves, so we can't confirm its validity -- is that six worlds will be in the final game, each with multiple planets. Also, as per the usual post-N64 Mario game, Galaxy will feature 120 stars you can collect.Super Mario Galaxy is hoping to move a few units when it's released November 12 in North America.[Via NWF]
Nintendo Power ending three-for-free offer
Nintendo Power has been pushing this deal for what seems like forever -- register three games or consoles with your My Nintendo account to receive three free issues of the magazine and a discounted year-length subscription afterwards. Besides extending your console's warranty and the less-than-occasional giveaway, it's pretty much the only incentive for North American gamers to register their Nintendo products at all.Enjoy the offer while it lasts, as it expires at the end of this month, and trial subscription registrations will no longer be accepted come August 1st. Could this be the harbinger of Nintendo Power's move to a third-party publisher? Or perhaps it was just finally time to end the trial? Either way, we hope that something will take its place as a reward for product registration. We're tired of seeing the awesome stuff Japan's Club Nintendo receives, while all we get are downloadable wallpapers.
Promotional Consideration: Come As You Are
Promotional Consideration is a weekly feature about the Nintendo DS advertisements you usually flip past, change the channel on, or just tune out.If you missed our spotlight on Leo Burnett's "Communion Day" ad last Sunday, make sure to give it a glance. Even if you've already skimmed through our words on the award-winning piece, we've updated our summation with some insight from art director Rosemary Collini Bosso.This weekend's installment of Promotional Consideration takes a critical eye to an unconvincing ad that might actually drive away consumers. Read on for more details.
Promotional Consideration: Communion Day
Promotional Consideration is a new weekly feature about the Nintendo DS advertisements you usually flip past, change the channel on, or just tune out. Our christening post takes a look at an Italian ad for the handheld that won Epica's silver award for Press last year. Check past the post break for the full image.
ESRB's censorship wound re-opened, user-made content to break the ratings system
In an article published today titled "The Breasts that Broke the Game", The Escapist re-visits a bit of news that should have caused a commotion but barely grabbed our attention. In April of last year, the ESRB changed the rating of Oblivion from "T" to "M", citing newly-discovered gore and violence as well as a user-made mod that made all the female characters topless. Bethesda crafted the perfect response, agreeing to comply with the ratings upgrade but reminding everyone it has no control over third-party creations.The mod was created because a woman named Maeyanie hated "government/society/whatever forcing companies to 'protect our innocent population from seeing those evil dirty things 50% of them possess personally anyways'". The Escapist points out that the mod was tame, featuring little more than Barbie doll-style nudity, yet the ESRB still flipped out. User-made content is fast becoming the focus of videogames (see Spore, LittleBigPlanet, The Sims), and with that will come an influx of sex-related creations. How should the ESRB respond? With a new ratings category ("W" for "We're not responsible")? Slapping an "M" on every game that gives you an iota of customization control?
Edge's July cover: Wii remote winged and gilded
We try to tip our hats whenever we spot a magazine cover that catches our fancy, but after having received numerous complaints from the jerks in accounting, upper management recently revised our office dress code to prohibit the wearing of sombreros, bowlers, and Davy Crockett caps. Our heads have been bare ever since the decree was passed down, and we haven't been doing much hat-tipping as a result. Needless to say, we really miss our silly hats.Edge's cover for its July issue is just what we needed to lift our spirits. The UK magazine has a reputation for attractive layouts, inside and out, and this month's artwork is no exception, heralding Nintendo's victory run on gold. Though the image pasted above captures the basic gist, you can see a shot of the full cover after the post break. Ironically, only one Wii game made Edge's review pages this time around -- Mercury Meltdown Revolution. Ignition's labyrinthine title garnered an 8 out of 10; quite impressive considering the magazine's traditionally tough scoring.
Rumor redux: Nintendo Power heading to 3rd party publisher
There are further rumors about Nintendo Power, Nintendo's official gaming magazine, but the rumblings have changed slightly. The latest word is that the publication will continue, just with a new publisher working things behind the scenes, which is how the European Nintendo magazine is handled. It's a good time to to relive some nostalgic moments with the magazine, and Infendo recently clued us in on a shiny new set of covers courtesy of Flickr user kocojim. Go forth and bask, and let's hope this version of the rumor is true.
Rumor: No more Nintendo Power?
Word is that we're looking at the end of an era. IGN's Matt Casamassina reports that Nintendo Power is in its last days, at least, as we know it today. While it may just be that a restructure is in the cards for the magazine, rumor has it that the employees are being told that they need to find new jobs by September.Nintendo Power's been churning out the fanboy news for nineteen years now, but these last few have been a rough time for all sorts of print media, with the rise of the blogosphere and instant information. We wouldn't be surprised to see Nintendo Power shut its doors ... but we would be a little sad.
Nintendo Power shutting down?
We attempted to think of something witty and clever to start the post off with a bang, but in the end, it would just be inappropriate. For at least one of us here on staff, Nintendo Power delivered the very first experience to the concept of gaming journalism.Recent reports, however, have indicated that massive layoffs have been implemented at the publication. This is by no means an official announcement, but certainly either a massive downsizing or outright cancellation. NP has been putting out their pages for nineteen whole years, and it would be a great loss to the gaming community to see such a mainstay eliminated.That said, our brilliant coverage of all things Wii and DS have probably helped in some small way to facilitate this grim news. Oops. Also, will this affect the tentative plans to bring legacy NP content to the Virtual Console? If they have to die, let their memory at least by memorialized in style.
HGZine mag scores exclusive Wipeout Pulse preview
And everyone benefits. HGZine's latest issue is filled with some incredible features, but the one that tops it all is their cover feature: Wipeout Pulse. Reading through the media-heavy PDF can cause some older machines to chug, but we have to admit that we were impressed with this month's offerings. Learning more about the subtle control changes to Pulse is certainly worthwhile, and their feature on "the 10 best games you've never played" is certainly appreciated. Best of all? It's free.Download the newest issue here.
Buzz-building booklet
From hosting parties with Wii ambassadors to tagging along with touring bands, Nintendo has been pushing its new system in lots of creative ways. It's helped a lot to spread the word about the Wii to not just traditional gamers, but lapsed and non-gamers as well.Our latest issue of Nintendo Power came in the mail packed with a 12-page booklet promoting the console's features. Considering that most of the magazine's subscribers likely already have a Wii, this doesn't seem noteworthy at first, but turning to the last page, Nintendo has a message encouraging people to pass around the advertising piece. We doubt that there are many situations where you'd want to evangelize Nintendo with the booklet, but it sounds like an effective way to give information about the console to someone who's interested in the Wii, but doesn't know much about it. Jump past the post break for the scanned message.
The Escapist examines PopCap's 'new' casual gaming initiative
The latest issue of gaming culture magazine The Escapist is out. Featured this week is a look at PopCap's success in the casual gaming business. Their latest hit, Bookworm Adventures Deluxe, broke the bank with an 30 month development period and a budget of over $700,000. It was a massive venture into unexplored casual gaming territory that has paid of quite well.When most people think about casual games the word "clone" springs to mind. If you've played Bejeweled, you've also played Zoo Keeper, Jewel Quest, Magic Lanterns, and Paris Hilton's Diamond Quest. Very little sets these games apart, yet the business continues to explode as companies release clones on a regular basis. Bookworm Adventures was a radically new idea, but according to PopCap they're just following their philosophy of "trying different things rather than milking a formula to death".A number innovative puzzle ideas have trickled from PopCap's studios over the last few years, but they're not as clone-free as they would like to appear. With this timid step into the realm of genre hybrids, will casual game developers earn some much-needed respect? Or is it just another game idea to "borrow"?
Whopping Wii remote comic
We played the "What if?" game with our friends a lot during our younger years. Our school playground was a montessori arena for cartwheels and slow motion kicks as we acted out, "What if we were Power Rangers?" Tired from our recess shenanigans, we would brood over notes we passed in class, wondering, "What if it rained candy? Seriously, wouldn't that be rad?" We eventually put the childish pastime behind us, realizing that it wasn't appropriate to ask our best friends, "What if I was a guy who wanted to date your sister?"Buzz Beamer from Sports Illustrated Kids hasn't given up on the "What if?" game yet. In the magazine's latest comic, Buzz ruminates over the possibilities of an over-sized Wii remote. He comes up with some entertaining ideas like Virtual Log Riding and Tossing the Caber. Our favorite is the one where he has a "realistic" wrestling match with the giant remote. That's way cooler than the Hulk Hogan pillow we used to grapple with when we were kids!
Rumor: NiGHTS remake/sequel for Wii? [update 2]
[Update: decided to go ahead and actually post the images.][Update 2: changed the title, which was by coincidence identical to Game|Life's.]Another Sega Saturn-related rumor! Maybe Segata Sanshiro is hitting the press circuit, drumming up renewed interest in his favorite console.The latest rumor comes from the UK's Official Nintendo Magazine, who placed a teaser image in the back page of their March issue, advertising that a revived classic would be revealed in the next issue. The image consisted of a field of stars with an outline of some kind of shape.NeoGAFfers did some detective work and found the image that had been outlined: a character portrait of Sega's NiGHTS character. NiGHTS more than counts as a classic game! The implication here is that a new game in the series might be headed to the Wii.We're still skeptical for a few reasons: first, the next edition of ONM will be the April issue, and it's imprudent to trust any news item that comes out in a game magazine in April. Second, the "revival" might be the original game on Virtual Console ... which would actually still be great. Finally, there's always the possibility that the NiGHTS picture was a deliberate misdirection, and the new game could turn out to be Dizzy or something. We hope that isn't the case-- Sega fans have been put through a lot, and many of us could snap at any moment.We've posted both the original teaser image and the NiGHTS-added version after the break.
Wikia launches do-it-yourself online game mag
How many times have you read a video game magazine or web site and thought, "I could write better than that." Oh yeah, tough guy? You think it's easy writing this stuff? Well, now is your chance to prove it.Launched Tuesday, Gaming.wikia is part of a group of "open-source magazines" that "allow people to blog, rate content and freely contribute news and information on topics they are passionate about," according to the press release. In other words, it's the collaborative power of Wikipedia mixed with the democratic organization of Digg.Or maybe not. When we loaded up the site, the top story of the moment was "Motorstorm is Awesome," which included the cogent commentary "I love racing games, but this is just FREAKING AWESOME!" Is this supposed to be an online magazine or a glorified message board?The problem with letting everyone contribute is that you have to let everyone contribute. Without a large, well-organized community to moderate out the crap, an open-source project like this can go from controlled chaos to just plain chaos rather quickly. If Gaming.wikia can attract this sort of self-policing community, more power to them. If not, there are plenty of satisfactory sources for game news out there already. Like the fine, closed-source site you're reading right now, for instance.[Via Game|Life]
Computer Games magazine shut down
A Gamasutra article indicates that dead tree media will soon be missing two more magazines, with Computer Games Magazine and its sibling, Massive, both facing the publishing guillotine. Publisher for the computer enthusiast and MMO-centric magazines, TheGlobe.com, is reportedly buckling under a recent spam-related lawsuit -- the cause of which was a ham-fisted ad campaign that blasted MySpace users with over 100,000 unsolicited e-mail messages. An SEC filing from TheGlobe estimates the damage payable to be between $40 million and $120 million. The filing goes on to state that "judgment against it would materially and adversely affect its financial condition and future operations, including the potential bankruptcy or cessation of business of the Company." It seems even large companies get to slit their wrists on MySpace.
Deal of the Day: A year of Famitsu for $390
Are you tired of waiting those agonizing minutes or hours for news to get from Famitsu's website to you? Would you rather wait days or weeks? How about at a great financial expense? If you answered "yes" to these questions, then this Amazon.com deal is for you: $390 for a year of Weekly Famitsu, delivered right to you. That comes out to $7.50 an issue, with (thankfully) free shipping!Actually, this deal is not so ridiculous. Well, maybe it is in the "$400 for a magazine" sense, or especially in the "$400 for a magazine you can't read" sense for some of us, but there's a lot of cool content that is not as time-sensitive as news-- screens, Famitsu's trademark "cross reviews", even ads that are usually pretty fun to look at. [Via CAG]
Japanese Famitsu, delivered straight to your door
For only a paltry $390 at amazon.com, you too can get Japan's most venerable video gaming magazine delivered to your home. Sure, the text will look like nothing more than squiggly lines for those of you without Japanese reading ability, but the over-abundance of pretty pictures and fan service should more than appease the most hardcore of gamers. Sure, with the same money, you could almost buy an Xbox 360--but if you're reading Famitsu, chances are you probably don't care.[Via CAG]
