Remember printing gaming magazines? Although there are a few that are still active and loved by enthusiasts to this day, it can be said that this medium is only a shadow of its former self, with the growth of the internet making it impossible to print shop numbers become obsolete.
However, the great thing about the internet is that you can find boat load of printed magazines that have been uploaded and archived for years, just waiting for your eager eyes to scan their stunning pages. One such example is Electric Nintendoa dedicated gaming magazine by Nintendo of America (and later Future US) that ran from 1988 to 2012. Thanks to a talented team of archivists working on a project called ‘Retromags’, All 285 numbers are now available for download on Archive.org.
In a short message posted on the website, the uploader of ‘Gumball’ stated the following:
“Every Nintendo Power issue from 1 to 285 is in cbr format. From what I can tell, there’s not a collection of every single issue in one place but a scattered selection of other series. No series is complete. So I put this together with the help of some amazing people for all to enjoy.”
Coming in at just over 40GB for a plethora of files, the files aren’t officially available in the .cbr format, showing everything from Nintendo’s pioneering NES era to the dawn of the Wii U that stood in time. short. You can download each issue individually if you want, but fair warning, it looks like the site is a bit of a hit right now, so you might have a long wait.
Of course, the question on everyone’s lips, including ours, is how long will this be available before Nintendo itself will definitely remove it? It’s not known for welcoming such projects with open arms, but hopefully even Nintendo will recognize the importance of preserving game magazines. Fingers crossed.
