NGamer

Summer 2006 and with the imminent demise of the Gamecube and the arrival of the Wii, the time was nigh for a new magazine to reflect the change. Rather than simply retitling the magazine (as with N64/NGC) a totally new magazine was launched in July 2006. For the first time there was equal importance between both handhelds and home consoles, and focussed more on the culture of Nintendo than previously.

World of Nintendo focused on the various aspects of Nintendo culture including the top 15 Nintendo happenings over the last month, and interesting things you can do with games. Other features included the diary of a video game developer and the odd page 89 (or 91, or wherever they had space) - where anything could happen.

Also in NGamer was a regular retro section - showcasing games and platforms made popular by the Wii's burgeoning Virtual Console. In the early days, footage of the games being played also featured within NGTV, showing Matthews "skills" at playing old school games.

The core of the NGamer staff stayed the same, with Mark Green - who had worked on both N64 and NGC - the launch editor. However new members of staff were brought in to complement, with Matthew Castle (now Editor at Official Xbox Magazine) bringing a youthful enthusiasm to the team. With a similar team in place, the writing style was very almost a continuation from NGC, no bad thing indeed!

Throughout NGamer’s life, the magazine was famed for looking a little kiddy, although in fairness this was mostly due to the games of the time, and perhaps lost long-time readers because of this. To try and redress the balance, Future decided to relaunch the magazine in January 2012 as Nintendo Gamer, with the same focus, but with a much more mature feel to it. Unfortunately in September the same year, the decision was made for Future to focus solely on official magazines and online content and thus the magazine was closed down, with the last issue taken off the shelves almost 20 years to the day after Super Play's first issue hit the shops.