When the first issue of Next Generation reached American newsstands in January 1995, the video game business was standing at one of the great dividing lines in its history. The Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis still dominated millions of living rooms, but a new generation of hardware was arriving. The 3DO and Atari Jaguar were already on the market. Sega was preparing the Saturn for the United States. Sony was preparing to enter the console business with the PlayStation. Nintendo was talking about the machine then known as the Ultra 64. Three-dimensional graphics, optical discs, new processors, and rapidly expanding development budgets were beginning to change what a video game could be.
There were already plenty of American magazines prepared to cover those changes. What made Next Generation unusual was that it did not simply want to tell readers which games to buy. It wanted to explain the industry producing them.
The Video Game History Foundation, which now preserves the complete magazine run, describes Next Generation as one of the relatively few widely distributed American gaming magazines that concentrated on the game industry itself instead of focusing almost entirely on individual products. Its intended readership was older than the audience targeted by many competing publications, and its coverage attracted both ordinary players and people working professionally in games.
That ambition was visible from the beginning. The January 1995 premiere presented itself as a new kind of video game magazine. The issue discussed new hardware, interviewed 3DO president Trip Hawkins, examined technology and development, and still provided previews and reviews without allowing those sections to completely overwhelm the publication. The result was something closer to a magazine about the culture, technology, economics, and future of video games than a conventional buyer’s guide.
For readers who wanted to know not simply what was coming next, but why the industry was changing, Next Generation arrived at almost exactly the right moment.
The American Relative of Edge
The magazine did not emerge in isolation. It had a particularly close relationship with the British magazine Edge, another publication built around the idea that games deserved serious criticism and industry reporting. The Video Game History Foundation identifies Next Generation and NextGen as affiliated with Edge through Future, and former Next Generation editor Chris Charla later described the relationship in even simpler terms, remembering Next Generation as essentially the American version of Edge.
The corporate history behind the magazine can be confusing because the publisher changed names during its first year. Next Generation began under GP Publications. Future had already acquired GP Publications around late 1993, and on May 2, 1995, GP Publications was renamed Imagine Publishing. The company later used the Imagine Media name. This means the change visible during 1995 was not simply an outside company suddenly purchasing Next Generation after its launch. It was part of a larger reorganization and renaming under Future ownership.
That relationship placed Next Generation inside a publishing organization with experience producing specialized magazines for passionate audiences. Yet the American publication developed a recognizable identity of its own. It covered the same rapidly changing global industry as Edge, but it did so from an American newsstand and business environment in which Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, and a growing field of American developers and publishers were fighting for attention.
The timing could hardly have been better.
Covering the 32-Bit Revolution While It Happened
Looking through the magazine’s run today is like watching the modern video game business assemble itself month by month.
The January 1995 issue arrived before the American launches of the PlayStation and Saturn. By March, PlayStation had become a major cover subject. May examined Nintendo’s coming Ultra 64. By 1996 the magazine was discussing DirectX, online gaming, the economics of development, venture capital, and the question of how people could find careers in the game business. In 1997 it asked what made a good game, investigated why a game cost $50, examined game packaging and design documents, and devoted coverage to independent developers. Later issues examined Dreamcast, the future of consoles, the relationship between video games and Hollywood, broadband gaming, Microsoft’s Xbox plans, GameCube, and the increasing scale of professional development.
Those subjects reveal what made the magazine different. A conventional games magazine could tell its audience whether a Nintendo 64 release was entertaining. Next Generation was also interested in why Nintendo’s cartridge strategy mattered, how development economics worked, which executives had influence, what technological changes were coming, how publishers made decisions, and where the industry might be headed several years into the future.
Sometimes the magazine guessed correctly. Sometimes it did not. That actually makes the surviving issues more historically valuable.
A history written decades later already knows that Sony defeated Sega in the fifth-generation console market, that Nintendo 64 cartridges created advantages and limitations, that Dreamcast would have a short commercial life, that Microsoft would successfully enter the console industry, and that online connectivity would eventually become normal. Writers in the 1990s did not possess that hindsight. Their predictions, anxieties, assumptions, interviews, advertisements, and mistakes preserve the uncertainty of the period.
That is something no retrospective history can perfectly reproduce.
A Magazine Interested in the People Behind the Games
One of Next Generation’s strongest characteristics was its interest in developers, executives, designers, programmers, and other people behind the products.
Interviews often went beyond the title a developer happened to be promoting that month. The magazine was interested in what major figures believed about games themselves. Its pages therefore became a record of the industry’s own debates during a period when gaming was rapidly changing from a business associated with cartridges, arcades, and comparatively small development teams into a global entertainment industry involving increasingly complicated technology and enormous financial investments.
That approach also helped preserve the voices of people whose importance might not have been obvious to the general public at the time. Executives who appeared primarily as names in corporate press releases could be asked about strategy. Developers could discuss the philosophy behind their work. Technical subjects could receive space that would have been difficult to justify in a publication focused overwhelmingly on screenshots and strategy tips.
The magazine even became a home for serious video game history. Steven L. Kent, who later published The Ultimate History of Video Games, had historical work appear in Next Generation during the 1990s. In a period before video game history had developed the archival infrastructure it enjoys today, publishing that kind of material beside reporting on contemporary hardware helped connect the industry’s past with its rapidly developing future.
Reviews Without the Cult of the Reviewer
Perhaps one of the strangest features for a modern reader is the magazine’s approach to authorship.
Most of Next Generation’s articles and reviews did not carry conventional individual bylines. In a March 1997 letters section, the magazine addressed this policy directly. Rather than building the publication around identifiable reviewer personalities, the editorial approach emphasized a collective magazine voice.
That choice changed the tone of the publication.
A review was presented less as one writer telling readers what he personally thought and more as a judgment carrying the institutional weight of Next Generation. The magazine used a five-star review system, already explained in its premiere issue, but the significance of the reviews went beyond the symbols placed beside a game. The editorial voice suggested that games could be subjected to criticism according to design, execution, originality, technology, and broader artistic achievement.
It was a philosophy that fit the magazine’s larger identity. Next Generation was trying to make the publication itself the authority.
Whether readers agreed with its judgments was another matter.
Clean Pages in a Loud Era
The physical magazine reinforced that identity.
American gaming magazines of the 1990s could be visually chaotic. Screenshots, captions, mascots, advertisements, sidebars, tips, codes, and brightly colored text competed for space. Next Generation generally adopted a cleaner presentation. Its early issues became particularly recognizable for their heavy matte-finished covers, which distinguished them from many glossy competitors.
The design suggested seriousness before a reader reached the first feature.
There were still previews. There were still reviews. There were advertisements. The magazine was unquestionably part of the commercial gaming press. Yet it generally avoided defining itself around cheat codes, walkthroughs, and pages crowded with screenshots. Its strongest material was often the material that asked readers to think about how games were developed and sold.
That distinction mattered because Next Generation was appearing during a period when many members of the first generations raised on home video games were becoming adults. Gaming did not need to be abandoned with childhood. A publication could assume its readers were interested enough in the medium to care about design philosophy, technology, financing, company strategy, and history.
The magazine treated that reader as someone who might still be playing games twenty years later.
It turned out to be a reasonable assumption.
Next Generation Goes Online
The same company was also experimenting with another medium that would eventually transform game journalism.
Chris Charla later recalled that he began at Next Generation, became its features editor, then went “across the hall” to help launch IGN.com before eventually returning to become editor-in-chief of Next Gen. The Video Game History Foundation’s corporate history dates the creation of the Imagine Games Network to September 1996 and its separation into an independent company to February 1999.
That connection places Next Generation close to another major transition in gaming media.
Print magazines had once possessed enormous advantages. They could obtain access to developers and publishers, travel to trade shows, print professional screenshots, interview executives, and place gaming news into the hands of readers across the country. The Web began destroying the importance of speed as a monthly magazine advantage. A story that had once waited for the next issue could increasingly be reported the same day.
Next Generation developed its own online presence at next-generation.com, but the rise of sites such as IGN demonstrated what was coming. The magazine that devoted so much attention to technological disruption in the game industry was itself publishing through a technological disruption in the media industry.
The future it covered was also coming for print.
When Next Generation Reached Congress
By the end of the 1990s, video games were no longer a subject confined to enthusiast magazines and electronics stores. They had become part of national cultural and political arguments, particularly concerning violence.
Next Generation briefly found itself inside that debate in an unusually direct way.
On May 19, 1999, Colorado congressman Scott McInnis spoke on the floor of the House of Representatives about violent video games in the aftermath of the Columbine High School massacre. During his remarks, he displayed and repeatedly discussed the June issue of Next Generation, drawing attention to a violent two-page advertisement printed in the magazine. He criticized both the games and the publication that carried the advertising.
McInnis’s arguments about games and violence should not be mistaken for scientific evidence about the effects of video games. Their historical importance is different. The Congressional Record demonstrates how completely gaming had entered American public debate by 1999. A magazine launched only four years earlier for serious video game enthusiasts could now be held up on the floor of Congress as evidence in a national argument about entertainment, advertising, children, and violence.
The controversy also exposed an unavoidable tension in enthusiast publishing. A magazine could approach games critically and intellectually while depending heavily on advertising purchased by the same industry it covered. That tension was not unique to Next Generation, but the congressional episode made it unusually visible.
Contemporary reporting from the Los Angeles Times showed how nervous game companies and magazine publishers had become after Columbine. Publishers were receiving requests concerning advertising that had already been prepared or printed, illustrating how quickly the cultural climate surrounding violent games had changed. Los Angeles Times
The NextGen Relaunch
In September 1999, the original Next Generation run ended with issue 56 and the magazine reappeared as NextGen.
The new September issue restarted the volume numbering and marked what became the second major lifecycle of the publication. The Video Game History Foundation preserves 56 issues under the Next Generation name followed by 29 issues of NextGen, creating a complete 85-issue run from January 1995 through January 2002.
The shorter name and redesigned presentation arrived at another turning point for the industry. Sega’s Dreamcast was reaching the United States. Sony was preparing PlayStation 2. Microsoft was moving toward Xbox. Nintendo was developing GameCube. Broadband and online console gaming were becoming increasingly important subjects.
Once again, the publication had no shortage of futures to examine.
Issues during this period covered the Dreamcast launch, PlayStation 2, the battle for control of the living room, development crunch, Microsoft’s creation of Xbox, broadband gaming, GameCube, Sega’s changing position in the hardware business, and the growing power of major developers and publishers. Unvis
Yet NextGen was entering a media world very different from the one its predecessor had entered in 1995. Online journalism was faster. Gaming websites were becoming destinations in their own right. Publishers could communicate directly with fans through the Web. Videos, screenshots, rumors, reviews, and breaking announcements no longer needed to wait for a monthly printing schedule.
A magazine devoted to the future had reached a future in which magazines had less control over gaming information.
The End of the Print Run
In December 2001, contemporary trade reporting announced that Next Generation was shutting down. The January 2002 publication became issue 85 and the final print issue. The Video Game History Foundation’s archive confirms the complete run as January 1995 through January 2002, with 56 issues of Next Generation and 29 of NextGen.
Seven years was not an extraordinarily long life in magazine publishing, but the seven years involved were extraordinary ones for video games.
When Next Generation began, Sony had never released a console in North America, Sega remained one of Nintendo’s principal hardware rivals, Nintendo’s next machine was still known publicly as the Ultra 64, Microsoft was primarily an outside supplier of computer technology to the game business, and widespread consumer Internet access was still new.
By the time the magazine disappeared, PlayStation 2 was becoming the dominant console of its era, Sega had left the hardware business, Microsoft had released Xbox, Nintendo had launched GameCube, 3D graphics had become ordinary, online gaming was expanding, and gaming websites could deliver information every day instead of every month.
The “next generation” of January 1995 had become history with remarkable speed.
A Name That Refused to Disappear
The title nevertheless survived beyond print.
Future later revived Next Gen as an industry-focused website in 2005. The relationship with Edge again became visible online, with Edge material appearing through the Next Gen site. In July 2008, the remaining Next Gen web identity was rebranded as Edge Online, effectively bringing the American name back into the orbit of the British publication with which it had been closely connected from the beginning.
There is a fitting symmetry in that ending.
Chris Charla remembered Next Generation as the American version of Edge. The print magazine developed its own readership and history, disappeared, returned on the Web, and eventually surrendered its name to Edge. The two brands that had shared so much editorial DNA were once again joined.
Why Next Generation Matters to Video Game History
The easiest way to underestimate Next Generation is to treat it simply as another discontinued gaming magazine.
Its real historical value is broader.
Across 85 issues, the publication documented one of the most transformative periods the video game industry has experienced. Its writers watched Sony become a console manufacturer, Sega decline from hardware giant to software publisher, Nintendo navigate the move into 3D, Microsoft prepare to enter the console market, development teams grow larger, budgets rise, the Web reshape journalism, and games become an increasingly visible part of mainstream American culture.
More importantly, the magazine tried to understand those changes while they were happening.
The complete run now preserved by the Video Game History Foundation gives historians something unusually valuable. It contains not simply finished histories of PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, or Xbox, but contemporary expectations about what those machines might become. It preserves advertisements from companies fighting for market share, interviews with people making decisions, reviews written before reputations hardened into consensus, letters from readers, editorial policies, corporate information, predictions, arguments, and mistakes.
That makes Next Generation more than a source for remembering old games.
It is a record of how an industry understood itself while it was becoming modern.
A reader opening the January 1995 premiere could not know that PlayStation would become one of the most important brands in gaming, that Sega would eventually stop manufacturing consoles, or that Microsoft would become one of the major platform holders. The magazine’s writers could analyze the evidence, interview the people involved, and make predictions, but the outcome remained unwritten.
That uncertainty is what makes old magazines such powerful historical documents.
Next Generation spent seven years asking where video games were going. Today, its greatest value may be that its surviving pages allow us to return to a time when nobody yet knew the answer.
Sources & Further Reading
Video Game History Foundation Library. “Next Generation / NextGen.” Next Generation / NextGen, MAG-NEXTGEN. 85-issue collection, January 1995–January 2002. https://library.gamehistory.org/repositories/2/resources/11
Next Generation. Vol. 1, no. 1, issue 1. January 1995. Video Game History Foundation Library. https://library.gamehistory.org/repositories/2/archival_objects/3378
Next Generation. “Welcome to a New Kind of Videogame Magazine.” No. 1, January 1995. Video Game History Foundation Library. https://library.gamehistory.org/repositories/2/archival_objects/3378
Next Generation. “Next Generation’s Star Ratings.” No. 1, January 1995. Video Game History Foundation Library. https://library.gamehistory.org/repositories/2/archival_objects/3378
Next Generation. “Letters.” No. 27, March 1997, 109. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/NEXT_Generation_27/page/n109/mode/2up
Next Generation. Issue 54. June 1999. Video Game History Foundation Library. https://library.gamehistory.org/repositories/2/resources/11/digitized
Next Generation. Issue 56. August 1999. Video Game History Foundation Library. https://library.gamehistory.org/repositories/2/archival_objects/3433
NextGen. Vol. 1, no. 1. September 1999. Video Game History Foundation Library. https://library.gamehistory.org/subjects/23?filter_fields%5B%5D=primary_type&filter_values%5B%5D=archival_object&page=468
NextGen. Vol. 1, no. 2. October 1999. Imagine Media. https://download.kingpin.info/index.php?dir=kingpin%2Fmedia%2Fmagazine%2F&file=NEXT_Generation_Issue_58_%28USA%29_1999-10.pdf
NextGen. Vol. 4, no. 1, issue 85. January 2002. Video Game History Foundation Library. https://library.gamehistory.org/repositories/2/digital_objects/7042
Video Game History Foundation Library. “Imagine Media.” Corporate authority record. https://library.gamehistory.org/agents/corporate_entities/36
Video Game History Foundation Library. “GP Publications, Inc.” Corporate authority record. https://library.gamehistory.org/agents/corporate_entities/4
Video Game History Foundation Library. “Next Generation / NextGen.” Collection description and finding aid. https://library.gamehistory.org/repositories/2/resources/11
Video Game History Foundation Library. “Edge.” Collection and archival records documenting its relationship with Next Generation. https://library.gamehistory.org/repositories/2/classifications/1?page=23
Charla, Chris. Interview by Christian Nutt. “Close Encounters with Console Indie Execs, Part 2: ID@Xbox’s Chris Charla.” Game Developer, 2014. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/close-encounters-with-console-indie-execs-part-2-id-xbox-s-chris-charla
Gaudiosi, John. “Next Generation Magazine Shuts Down.” Hive4media, December 5, 2001. Archived by the Internet Archive. https://web.archive.org/web/20011223125246/http://www.hive4media.com/news/html/industry_article.cfm?article_id=2219
United States Congress. Congressional Record. 106th Cong., 1st sess., May 19, 1999. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1999. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CREC-1999-05-19/pdf/CREC-1999-05-19.pdf
Glaser, Mark. “Royal Treatment for Game Reviewers.” Salon, April 21, 1998. https://www.salon.com/1998/04/21/feature_331/
Huffstutter, P. J. “Video Game Maker Drawing Fire for Violent Ads.” Los Angeles Times, June 29, 1999. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jun-29-fi-51111-story.html
Kent, Steven L. The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokémon and Beyond: The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2001. https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24445926M/The_Ultimate_History_of_Video_Games_From_Pong_to_Pok%C3%A9mon_and_Beyond
Retromags. “Next Generation.” Complete index of the original 56-issue run. https://www.retromags.com/magazines/usa/next-generation/
Retromags. “NextGen.” Index of the 29-issue relaunch run. https://www.retromags.com/magazines/usa/nextgen/
Retromags. “Next Generation Issue 001, January 1995.” https://www.retromags.com/files/file/3758-next-generation-issue-001-january-1995/
Internet Archive. “Next Generation Magazine.” Digitized magazine collection. https://archive.org/details/next-generation-magazine
Retro CDN. “Next Generation Scans.” Digitized periodical archive. https://retrocdn.net/Category:Next_Generation_scans
Next Generation Online. Archived December 3, 2001. Internet Archive Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20011203002045/http://www.next-generation.com/
Future Network USA. “Imagine Media Is Now Future Network USA.” Archived February 10, 2005. Internet Archive Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20050210132617/http://www.futurenetworkusa.com/home_nf.html
Cifaldi, Frank. “Every English-Language Video Game Magazine Still in Print.” Video Game History Foundation, 2019. https://gamehistory.org/every-english-language-video-game-magazine/