Nintendo Player's Guide

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Image:Nes-game-atlas-t.jpg
NES Game Atlas Player's Guide cover

The Nintendo Player's Guide is a series of strategy magazines from Nintendo based on Nintendo Power magazine.

Contents

[edit] Original format

The first Player's Guide was simply called The Official Nintendo Player's Guide, featuring dozens of different NES games. It was followed in the early 1990s by a number of guides which were produced under the slightly different moniker of Nintendo Power Strategy Guides. These were sent between the then bi-monthly magazine issues to subscribers or mailed alongside them. NES games covered by their Strategy Guides included:

Nintendo ceased production of these bimonthly Strategy Guides due to a lack of important game releases in the pre-holiday seasons of the year.

[edit] Player's Guide

After converting Nintendo Power to a monthly format came the more well-known mainstay of Player's Guides. Early guides covered groups of games in one book. These books covered strategy for:

Outside of offering an optional Player's Guide as a free gift for a Nintendo Power subscription or subscription renewal, Nintendo Power did not include Player's Guides with the magazine. They were, however, made available separately, both through mail-order and at book and video-game shops. Nintendo did also once offer a subscription motive that included four of the aforementioned Player's Guides instead of only one.

[edit] Current era

Today each Player's Guide published features one specific game, much like the earlier Nintendo Power Strategy Guides. The concept is now emulated by other publishing companies such as Brady Games or Prima for Nintendo and other video game consoles. Almost all major video games released today will have an official Player's Guide associated with it.

In order to be released at the same time as the game, commercial Player's Guides are often based on a pre-release version of the game, rather than the final retail version. They also cannot be updated after they are published. Because of this, they often are not as accurate or detailed as free, fan-made FAQs or walkthroughs which can easily be found on-line (such as at GameFAQs).

The rise of the world wide web and the increasing availability of free on-line FAQs and walkthroughs has taken away some of the need for commercial Player's Guides. However, there is still a large market for them. Player's Guides often feature extensive picture-by-picture walkthroughs, maps, game art, and other visual features that cannot be provided by a bare text on-line walkthrough.

Among the games that have been given Player's Guides:

[edit] See also

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