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Game over for fans of Nintendo Power online archives

Hope you soaked up some 1990s video-game magazine nostalgia before the publication disappeared online.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
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Gael Cooper
2 min read
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The June 1994 issue of Nintendo Power.

Nintendo via Internet Archive

Update, August 8 at 4:40 p.m. PT: The story has been updated to indicate that Nintendo has yanked online issues of Nintendo Power.

It may not be as sad a day as when they discontinued 3D Doritos or canceled "Saved By the Bell," but for '90s nostalgia buffs, it's right up there.

Last week we reported that more than 100 issues of beloved video-game magazine Nintendo Power, published from 1988-2012, were available online.

Flipping through them from the comfort of your living-room couch was a hella sweet trip back to an era of sweet cartoony graphics and ads where people wear acid-washed jeans unironically. Where subscribers wrote fan letters saying "Free Willy" should be made into a game and "Earthworm Jim 2" earned a four-page splash-out feature.

But like a Super Mario power-up, that time warp didn't last. Let's hope you still have some print copies in the basement next to those VHS tapes of "Beverly Hills, 90210," because the online archives are now as empty as my coin purse after a few rounds of "Super Punch-Out!"

Apparently, Nintendo wasn't too happy about the old issues being available online and moved to protect its copyright.

"Nintendo's broad library of characters, products, and brands are enjoyed by people around the world, and we appreciate the passion of our fans," Nintendo said in a statement. "But just as Nintendo respects the intellectual property rights of others, we must also protect our own characters, trademarks and other content. The unapproved use of Nintendo's intellectual property can weaken our ability to protect and preserve it, or to possibly use it for new projects."

The issues went online as part of the Internet Archive in February, but views spiked in July after media coverage, according to a chart on the site.

Fortunately, 1980s and '90s kids can drown their sorrows in the glut of re-released retro beverages, including Ecto Cooler and Crystal Pepsi.

(Via Polygon)