In October 1992, British Nintendo players found something new on the shelves of their local newsagents. Across the top of the magazine was an enormous red Nintendo logo, beneath it the words Magazine System, and inside was more than one hundred pages devoted entirely to Nintendo games.
The publication was Nintendo Magazine System, usually shortened to NMS, and although it was technically a new magazine, much of the team behind it was already familiar to British video game readers.
NMS had been created from Mean Machines, one of the most influential British console magazines of the early 1990s. Rather than simply launching another Nintendo publication into an increasingly crowded market, publisher EMAP divided an established magazine into two separate titles. Sega readers received Mean Machines Sega. Nintendo readers received Nintendo Magazine System.
There was another important difference. EMAP had secured an official Nintendo licence.
That relationship allowed Nintendo Magazine System to present itself as Britain’s official Nintendo magazine while retaining much of the irreverent personality, colorful layouts, reviews, tips, competitions, and enthusiasm that had helped make Mean Machines successful. The result became one of the defining British Nintendo publications of the 1990s and the beginning of an official magazine lineage that would continue, under several names, long after the words Magazine System disappeared from the cover.
From Mean Machines to Nintendo Magazine System
The story of Nintendo Magazine System begins with Mean Machines.
EMAP launched Mean Machines as a standalone monthly magazine in October 1990 with Julian Rignall as editor. Rather than concentrating on home computers, it focused heavily on the growing console market, including Nintendo’s NES and Game Boy alongside Sega’s Master System and Mega Drive. The arrival of the Super Nintendo gave the magazine another major platform to cover.
By September 1992, Mean Machines had reached issue 24. It had also reached the end of its original form.
The September issue informed readers that the publication was being divided. Nintendo coverage would move into Nintendo Magazine System, while Sega coverage would continue through Mean Machines Sega. The decision made commercial sense in an industry increasingly organized around competing console brands. A reader primarily interested in Nintendo no longer needed to purchase pages devoted to Sega, while Sega owners could receive an entire magazine aimed at their machines.
The split also allowed EMAP to take advantage of something particularly valuable. It had obtained Nintendo’s official licence for the new publication.
Modern recollections from members of the old Mean Machines team describe that licence as a major commercial opportunity. The British games magazine market was expanding rapidly, and Nintendo’s name carried enormous weight with children and teenagers buying the NES, Game Boy, and increasingly the Super Nintendo. Richard Leadbetter later recalled that the official licence gave EMAP confidence that a dedicated Nintendo publication could become a major success.
The First Issue Arrives
The first issue of Nintendo Magazine System was dated October 1992.
It was published by EMAP, ran to 116 pages, and had Julian Rignall at the head of the magazine. Its cover immediately demonstrated how different the new publication could look from its multiformat predecessor. The huge Nintendo logo dominated the top of the page, leaving little doubt about exactly which audience EMAP wanted.
Inside, the magazine covered the Super Nintendo, NES, and Game Boy. Its first issue included news and previews, a substantial review of Super Mario Kart, coverage of games including The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Final Fight, Rival Turf, and Elite, letters, tips, charts, and an extensive index of Nintendo games.
The structure was significant because NMS was not simply functioning as a promotional catalogue. It retained the recognizable format of a British games magazine, complete with reviews, personalities, jokes, reader interaction, and editorial judgment.
The team was also closely connected to Mean Machines. Rignall remained central to the publication, while figures including Gary Harrod, Steve Merrett, Andy McVittie, Radion Automatic, Paul Davies, and Angus Swan were among those involved with the early magazine.
Even the launch became news inside NMS itself. The first issue reported on a launch gathering held at the Benihana restaurant in London, attended by representatives from the games business. What had begun as the Nintendo half of Mean Machines was being treated by EMAP as a major publication in its own right.
What Being an Official Nintendo Magazine Actually Meant
The word “official” was an important part of the identity of Nintendo Magazine System, but it did not mean Nintendo itself was writing and publishing the magazine.
EMAP owned and produced the publication. Nintendo licensed certain characters, trademarks, artwork, logos, and other intellectual property for use in the magazine. Archival cataloguing by the Video Game History Foundation identifies EMAP plc as the publisher and Nintendo of Europe as the licensor.
The distinction helps explain why NMS could simultaneously carry Nintendo’s official approval and retain the style of an EMAP games magazine.
The first issue included licensing language explaining Nintendo’s ownership of the characters and trademarks being used under licence by EMAP. By 1994, EMAP was advertising the publication as the only official Nintendo magazine available in the United Kingdom.
That official status offered obvious marketing advantages. Nintendo was one of the largest names in games, and placing its logo prominently across a magazine cover gave NMS an authority that unofficial competitors could not duplicate in exactly the same way.
At the same time, the magazine depended on readers believing that its pages were worth buying each month. That meant maintaining the mixture of reviews, humor, previews, tips, personalities, and exclusives that had attracted readers to British games journalism in the first place.
Julian Rignall Hands Over the Editor’s Chair
Julian Rignall’s association with the launch was important, but his period running the magazine day to day was surprisingly short.
By the December 1992 issue, Rignall was telling readers that Nintendo Magazine System was getting a new editor. Tim Boone, who had previously worked as editor of Computer and Video Games, took over the position while Rignall moved into a broader managing editor role.
The January 1993 issue clearly identifies Boone as editor.
That early transition demonstrated how quickly EMAP was expanding and reorganizing its games publishing operation. Rignall had helped create and guide Mean Machines, and his name remained closely associated with the magazines that emerged from it, but NMS soon developed an editorial life beyond its original launch editor.
Boone continued through 1993 and into 1994. Other editorial changes followed as the decade progressed. By January 1996, readers were being introduced to a new editor named Dave, later identified in the magazine as Dave Upchurch.
Through those changes, the publication itself remained recognizable. Editors and writers could move on, but the official licence, Nintendo focus, recurring sections, bright design, and close relationship with the company’s hardware gave the magazine a continuing identity.
Selling the Super Nintendo Era
The timing of the NMS launch could hardly have been better for a magazine built around Nintendo.
The Super Nintendo had arrived in Europe earlier in 1992, bringing with it a rapidly expanding library of games. The NES remained relevant, the Game Boy had become enormously successful, and Nintendo’s franchises provided a steady supply of recognizable characters and anticipated releases.
Early issues of NMS therefore captured the Super Nintendo during one of the most active periods in the console’s history.
Super Mario Kart, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Street Fighter II, Star Fox, Mortal Kombat, and other major releases appeared during the period in which NMS was establishing itself. The magazine could move between reviews of finished games, previews of forthcoming titles, strategy material for games readers already owned, Nintendo news, and coverage of trade shows where future releases were being demonstrated.
The March 1993 issue, for example, featured Star Fox among its reviews while also previewing Mortal Kombat, discussing Street Fighter II Turbo, and carrying additional coverage of forthcoming Nintendo software.
For readers without internet access, those pages performed a function that is easy to underestimate today. A monthly games magazine could be a player’s main source of screenshots, release information, rumors, strategies, imports, industry news, and opinions about games that might cost considerably more than the magazine itself.
Buying the wrong game could be an expensive mistake. A trusted magazine therefore occupied an important position between publishers trying to sell games and consumers deciding how to spend limited money.
The Street Fighter II VHS and the Cover Gift War
Perhaps nothing better represents the early ambition of Nintendo Magazine System than the enormous VHS cassette attached to issue 3.
The December 1992 issue arrived with a Street Fighter II player’s guide video. Instead of limiting strategy coverage to screenshots and printed instructions, the NMS team recorded gameplay so viewers could watch techniques being performed on a television.
It was an extraordinary object to attach to a magazine.
Julian Rignall later described the idea as part of an escalating battle among British games magazines to offer increasingly impressive cover gifts. With dozens of publications competing for attention on crowded newsagent shelves, a free poster or booklet could help sell an issue. A complete VHS cassette was something else entirely.
The subject was also perfectly chosen. Street Fighter II had become one of the defining games of the period, and its Super Nintendo conversion generated tremendous interest. Watching experienced players demonstrate characters and moves offered something static screenshots could not.
Rignall later recalled that the issue sold more than 200,000 copies, though that figure should be treated as his recollection rather than an independently audited circulation number. Even with that qualification, the VHS became one of the best remembered cover promotions of the British games magazine era.
It also anticipated a form of video game media that later became commonplace. Decades before online video guides, livestreams, and gameplay channels became normal parts of gaming culture, NMS was putting recorded gameplay instruction directly into readers’ homes on videotape.
Competition on the Newsstand
The success of magazines such as NMS encouraged more competition, and the British games magazine market became crowded.
Nintendo players could choose among official and unofficial publications, while the wider market included magazines devoted to Sega, Amiga, PC, PlayStation, arcade games, and multiple systems at once. The battle was fought through exclusive screenshots, review scores, personalities, posters, supplements, tips books, CDs, videos, and increasingly elaborate covers.
The size of the market did not guarantee that every publication would continue growing.
Contemporary circulation figures provide an unusually useful glimpse into the changing fortunes of Nintendo Magazine System. Figures reported from the Audit Bureau of Circulations showed an average of 70,893 copies for NMS during January through June 1994. For the same period in 1995, the figure had fallen to 51,149.
That represented a decline of 27.9 percent.
NMS was not alone. EMAP’s other games publications included in the same report also recorded substantial declines, including Mean Machines Sega and Computer and Video Games. The figures show that even established publications were under considerable pressure by the middle of the decade.
Still, selling more than 50,000 copies on average placed NMS in a significant position within British games publishing. It had moved beyond the spectacular launch period and become an established monthly publication with an audience large enough to survive while many competitors disappeared.
Waiting for Nintendo’s Next Generation
By 1995 and 1996, the world that had produced Nintendo Magazine System was changing.
The original PlayStation and Sega Saturn brought a new hardware generation to Europe. Three-dimensional graphics were becoming a central part of video game marketing. CD-ROM technology was altering how games were presented and produced. Nintendo’s own successor to the Super Nintendo remained the subject of intense anticipation.
For NMS, the coming Nintendo 64 offered both a challenge and an opportunity.
The magazine had been created during the rise of the Super Nintendo, but its long-term future depended on following Nintendo into another generation. As more information about Nintendo’s 64-bit system appeared, NMS increasingly had a new machine around which to build previews, reports, speculation, screenshots, and eventually reviews.
This was one of the greatest advantages of a platform-specific magazine. The publication could evolve alongside the company it covered.
The NES gradually faded from the center of attention. The Super Nintendo matured. The Game Boy remained remarkably durable. Then the Nintendo 64 offered an entirely new library of software and a new audience of players deciding whether Nintendo’s machine could compete with Sony and Sega.
By the final issues carrying the Nintendo Magazine System name, the publication had effectively traveled from Nintendo’s 8-bit legacy through the 16-bit era and into the beginning of the Nintendo 64 generation.
Issue 53 Was Not the End
The February 1997 edition was issue 53 of Nintendo Magazine System.
It was also the final British issue published under that exact title.
That fact can create the misleading impression that the magazine closed in 1997. It did not.
In March 1997, the next numbered issue appeared as Nintendo Magazine. It was issue 54.
The uninterrupted numbering is important. This was not a completely separate publication replacing a failed magazine. It was the same continuing official Nintendo magazine under a revised name.
The timing was appropriate. Nintendo 64 launched in Europe in March 1997, and issue 54 loudly announced the arrival of the new console. Mario appeared prominently on the cover beside the Nintendo 64 hardware, while the issue promoted games including Super Mario 64, Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, Pilotwings 64, and Turok.
A magazine born at the beginning of the British Super Nintendo era had changed its name just as Nintendo entered another generation.
The Video Game History Foundation’s archival chronology records Nintendo Magazine System from October 1992 through February 1997, followed directly by Nintendo Magazine from March 1997 through May 1998. The numbering continued rather than restarting.
From Nintendo Magazine to Nintendo Official Magazine
The 1997 change was only the first of several names the publication would carry.
After Nintendo Magazine, the title became Nintendo Official Magazine in June 1998. Later variations included Nintendo Official Magazine UK before the publication again used the Nintendo Official Magazine name.
Despite those changes, EMAP remained behind the licensed British Nintendo publication for years.
Museum collections preserve issues from the later 1990s and identify EMAP as their creator, while Audit Bureau of Circulations records continue to list Nintendo Official Magazine under EMAP Active Limited as late as the second half of 2005.
That makes the original NMS more significant than its 53 issues might suggest. Those issues were the opening chapter of a publication whose lineage continued for more than a decade after the original name disappeared.
The End of EMAP’s Nintendo Licence
The next major break came at the end of 2005.
On December 1, Future plc announced that Nintendo UK had awarded it the exclusive licence to publish the official Nintendo magazine in Britain following a competitive pitch.
For EMAP, the decision ended an official relationship that had begun in the era of the Super Nintendo.
Nintendo UK marketing director Dawn Paine publicly praised EMAP’s work while explaining that Nintendo had decided to reevaluate the magazine and consider what other publishers could offer. Future, already one of Britain’s most important specialist magazine publishers, prepared a new official Nintendo publication.
The transition marked the end of the direct publishing line that had begun when EMAP divided Mean Machines in 1992.
The Nintendo magazine itself continued under Future, but the people, publisher, and editorial organization had changed. In that sense, the roots of Nintendo Magazine System stretched remarkably far. A decision made in the console magazine market of 1992 remained connected to Nintendo’s official British print presence until the middle of the 2000s.
The Australian Nintendo Magazine System
There is one complication for collectors and historians researching NMS.
Australia also had a publication called Nintendo Magazine System.
The Australian magazine should not simply be treated as additional issues of the British run. Material from the British publication was reused, and staff connections existed between the magazines, but the Australian version developed its own publishing history.
The Powerhouse museum in Australia holds a collection of 27 issues and identifies Trielle Corporation as the original Australian publisher. Its collection dates the Australian magazine from 1993 and documents issues extending well beyond the point at which the British publication had abandoned the NMS title.
That distinction explains why researchers can encounter Nintendo Magazine System issues carrying dates later than February 1997. They may be looking at the Australian publication rather than the original EMAP title from Britain.
For collectors attempting to build complete runs or historians studying the magazine’s chronology, separating the two editions is essential.
Why Nintendo Magazine System Matters
Old games magazines are sometimes treated primarily as collectibles, but Nintendo Magazine System is also a historical record.
Its pages preserve what Nintendo players were being told at particular moments before later knowledge changed how those events were remembered. Previews capture games while they were still unfinished. News sections preserve announcements, rumors, delays, and expectations. Reviews document how games were received without decades of hindsight. Advertisements reveal how publishers attempted to sell games, consoles, accessories, and identities to young players.
NMS is particularly valuable because its run crossed several important transitions.
It began when the NES was still present, the Game Boy was thriving, and the Super Nintendo represented Nintendo’s future. It documented the height of the 16-bit console rivalry, the explosion of fighting games, the growth of elaborate magazine cover gifts, the increasing importance of trade-show reporting, and the long wait for Nintendo’s next console.
By its final issue under the NMS name, the Nintendo 64 was ready to take over.
The magazine also preserves an era when printed games journalism occupied a much larger role in how players encountered the industry. There was no YouTube trailer to watch immediately after an announcement, no social media feed filling with screenshots from a press event, and no searchable online walkthrough available within minutes of release.
For many readers, the magazine was the connection.
A new issue arriving each month could reveal games they had never heard of, show the first screenshots of something months away from release, explain how to defeat a boss that had frustrated them for weeks, or persuade them that one game was worth saving for while another was better left on the shelf.
That relationship between magazine and reader is one reason surviving copies matter today.
From a Split Magazine to Nintendo History
Nintendo Magazine System began because EMAP decided that one successful console magazine could become two.
On one side was Sega. On the other was Nintendo.
The Nintendo publication received something particularly powerful: the official licence of the company whose machines it covered. Combined with an experienced editorial team inherited from Mean Machines, that licence helped NMS establish itself almost immediately.
The magazine then became something larger than its launch strategy.
It documented Nintendo’s British history month by month. It watched the Super Nintendo grow from a relatively new machine into an established console. It covered the remarkable endurance of the Game Boy. It participated in the increasingly extravagant competition among British games magazines. It attached a full VHS guide to an issue during the height of Street Fighter II mania. It weathered falling circulation and a changing media market. Finally, it reached the Nintendo 64 era and changed its name rather than disappearing.
Fifty-three issues carried the Nintendo Magazine System title between October 1992 and February 1997. The publication that began with issue 1, however, survived far beyond issue 53.
That continuing lineage may be the most important part of its history.
Nintendo Magazine System was not merely one more Nintendo magazine from the crowded newsstands of the 1990s. It was the beginning of more than a decade of EMAP’s official Nintendo publishing in Britain, a surviving record of how Nintendo games were reported, reviewed, advertised, anticipated, and argued over during one of the most important periods in the history of console gaming.
Sources & Further Reading
Mean Machines. No. 24. September 1992. EMAP. Retromags. https://www.retromags.com/magazines/uk/mean-machines/mean-machines-issue-24/
Nintendo Magazine System. No. 1. October 1992. London: EMAP. Out-of-Print Archive. https://www.outofprintarchive.com/catalogue/nintendomagazinesystem/NMS1.html
Nintendo Magazine System. No. 2. November 1992. London: EMAP. Out-of-Print Archive. https://www.outofprintarchive.com/catalogue/nintendomagazinesystem/NMS2.html
Nintendo Magazine System. No. 3. December 1992. London: EMAP. Out-of-Print Archive. https://www.outofprintarchive.com/catalogue/nintendomagazinesystem/NMS3.html
Nintendo Magazine System. No. 4. January 1993. London: EMAP. Out-of-Print Archive. https://www.outofprintarchive.com/catalogue/nintendomagazinesystem/NMS4.html
Nintendo Magazine System. No. 5. February 1993. London: EMAP. Out-of-Print Archive. https://www.outofprintarchive.com/catalogue/nintendomagazinesystem/NMS5.html
Nintendo Magazine System. No. 9. June 1993. London: EMAP. Out-of-Print Archive. https://www.outofprintarchive.com/catalogue/nintendomagazinesystem/NMS9.html
Nintendo Magazine System. No. 10. July 1993. London: EMAP. Out-of-Print Archive. https://www.outofprintarchive.com/catalogue/nintendomagazinesystem/NMS10.html
Nintendo Magazine System. No. 11. August 1993. London: EMAP. Out-of-Print Archive. https://www.outofprintarchive.com/catalogue/nintendomagazinesystem/NMS11.html
Video Game History Foundation Library. “Nintendo Official Magazine (UK).” MAG-NOMUK. Collection, October 1992–February 2006. https://library.gamehistory.org/repositories/2/resources/209
Video Game History Foundation Library. “Nintendo Magazine System, Issue 9, June 1993.” MAG-NOMUK.009. https://library.gamehistory.org/repositories/2/archival_objects/15398
Video Game History Foundation Library. “Nintendo Magazine System, Issue 11, August 1993.” MAG-NOMUK.011. https://library.gamehistory.org/repositories/2/archival_objects/15400
Video Game History Foundation Library. “Nintendo Magazine System, Issue 13, October 1993.” MAG-NOMUK.013. https://library.gamehistory.org/repositories/2/archival_objects/15402
Video Game History Foundation Library. “Nintendo Magazine System, Issue 18, March 1994.” MAG-NOMUK.018. https://library.gamehistory.org/repositories/2/archival_objects/15407
Out-of-Print Archive. “Nintendo Magazine System 53, February 1997.” February 15, 2023. https://outofprintarchive.com/news-2023.html
Nintendo Official Magazine. No. 54. March 1997. London: EMAP. Out-of-Print Archive. https://www.outofprintarchive.com/catalogue/nintendoofficialmagazine/NOM054.html
Centre for Computing History. “Official Nintendo Magazine, October 1997.” Museum collection record CH68373. https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/68373/Official-Nintendo-Magazine-October-1997/
Centre for Computing History. “Official Nintendo Magazine, June 1998.” Museum collection record CH68364. https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/68364/Official-Nintendo-Magazine-June-1998/
Sinclair User. No. 129. November 1992. EMAP. World of Spectrum. https://worldofspectrum.org/archive/magazines/sinclair-user/129
Future plc. “Future Wins UK Licence to Publish Nintendo Official Magazine.” December 1, 2005. https://www.investegate.co.uk/announcement/rns/future–futr/official-nintendo-uk-licence/953578
Audit Bureau of Circulations. “Official Nintendo Magazine.” Historical circulation and publisher records. https://www.abc.org.uk/product/10298
The Media Leader. “Jan to June ABCs: BBC, Emap and Conde Nast.” August 3, 1995. https://uk.themedialeader.com/jan-to-june-abcs-bbc-emap-and-conde-nast/
Jenkins, David. “Future Publishing Wins Official Nintendo UK Magazine Contract.” Game Developer, December 1, 2005. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/future-publishing-wins-official-nintendo-uk-magazine-contract
Jenkins, David. “ABCs Show UK Game Magazine Circulation Issues.” Game Developer, February 16, 2006. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/abcs-show-uk-game-magazine-circulation-issues
McFerran, Damien. “Nintendo Magazine System #1 and Mean Machines Sega #1.” Time Extension, January 31, 2024. https://www.timeextension.com/features/iconic-issues-nintendo-magazine-system-1-and-mean-machines-sega-1
McFerran, Damien. “The Making of Nintendo Magazine System’s Street Fighter II VHS: The Ultimate Cover Gift?” Time Extension, January 6, 2024. https://www.timeextension.com/features/the-making-of-nintendo-magazine-systems-street-fighter-ii-vhs-the-ultimate-cover-gift
McFerran, Damien. “The Making of Mean Machines, the Magazine That Sold Console Gaming to the UK.” Time Extension, May 27, 2023. https://www.timeextension.com/features/the-making-of-mean-machines-the-magazine-that-sold-console-gaming-to-the-uk
UK Games Magazines. “Nintendo Magazine System.” Database record, EMAP Publishing, 1992–1997. https://www.ukgamesmags.com/magazines/nintendo-magazine-system
Code Like It’s 198x. “Nintendo Magazine System.” Magazine research archive. https://code198x.com/vault/magazines/nintendo-magazine-system/
Out-of-Print Archive. “Nintendo Magazine System.” Preserved UK magazine collection. https://outofprintarchive.com/catalogue/nintendomagazinesystem1.html
Retromags. “Nintendo Magazine System.” United Kingdom magazine archive and issue database. https://www.retromags.com/magazines/uk/nintendo-magazine-system/
Powerhouse. “A Collection of ‘Nintendo Magazine System’ Australia Magazines.” Object no. 2026/62/8. Powerhouse Collection, Sydney. https://collection.powerhouse.com.au/object/833743