N-Sider

N-Sider is a website that provides news, reviews, history, and opinion articles relating to Nintendo Co., Ltd. The site was founded in 2000. It is currently an independent media organization funded and managed by Cory Faller, with assistance from a variety of writers and contributors. Despite occasional confusion, N-Sider is unrelated to the now defunct official NSider forums operated by Nintendo of America.

History

In 1999, Fran Mirabella III worked for GameFusion's Dolphin Cove website, covering Nintendo's next generation console then codenamed "Dolphin". In the Spring of 1999, Fran began recruitment for "Project Sno w," a codename for a Nintendo-centric website which was to be launched as NFormer.com. This was the original incarnation of what is now N-Sider.com. Before NFormer launched in August 2000, Fran's former co-workers at GameFusion decided to retain the rights to the NFormer.com domain. As a result, Fran made the decision to independently register the domain name N-Sider.com and establish a new website.

N-Sider.com officially launched on 2000-08-21, on the eve of Nintendo's GameCube unveiling at the SpaceWorld exhibition in Tokyo, Japan. Several staff members were hired and helped to round out the coverage.

Entertainment hub IGN began its "Developer Profiles" section in January 2001, created by the staff of N-Sider.com. The developer profiles were analytical write-ups on Japanese, European and U.S. development houses working on GameCube software—these profiles included: Intelligent Systems, Rare, and EAD. The group was once again approached by IGN in early 2005, however this time with the offer to merge the entire N-Sider database with the site. The offer was turned down and instead N-Sider and IGN agreed to a deal where N-Sider would contribute a series of articles to be featured on the IGN GameCube section. Several N-Sider articles were distributed by IGN during this partnership, most notably an article about the art of Metroid Prime, which included never-before-seen concept imagery.

Further work

Several one-time N-Sider staff members have gone on to work in the gaming industry itself after their contributions to N-Sider.

Site founder Mirabella left N-Sider after its launch and was hired by IGN Entertainment, where he became a co-editor of IGN's Nintendo 64 section. Staff writer Mary Jane Irwin also went on to write for IGN's GameCube department.

In April 2001, N-Sider artist Kevin Freitas left the site and was hired at Sandbox Studios in London, Ontario, later going on to work at Rockstar Games Canada, in Missisauga, Ontario, Canada. Staff artist David Hellman, who joined N-Sider in July 2002, eventually left the website to pursue other ventures, co-creating the acclaimed webcomic A Lesson is Learned But the Damage is Irreversible and drawing the art for Jonathan Blow's game Braid. Former editor Jason Nuyens also works in game production with the independent production team Breakfall.

Other staff members currently pursuing other gaming industry ventures include Jeff Van Camp, who writes articles for technology website Digital Trends, and Dean Bergmann, who assists with video production at Digital Extremes.

Community

Although there has been some confusion over the N-Sider name and Nintendo.com's NSider "online community," which closed on September 17, 2007, the two are separate entities. N-Sider.com currently hosts a database of Nintendo games, hardware, and employees.

External links

• N-Sider
• InternetArchive.org - "Story of N-Sider"
• The Art of Metroid Prime