Many Nintendo fans are still nostalgic for the good old days of Nintendo Power, once Nintendo's way of connecting to its fans. Backed up by the company itself and not a third party, Nintendo had all kinds of content only they could give to the readers- exclusive info on Nintendo games, from strategy guides, previews, and screen shots. In the past Nintendo Power subscribers had exclusive access to various sorts of Nintendo goodies: a free copy of the NES game Dragon Warrior; four magazines called Player's Guides featuring deep strategy advice for games like Super Mario World and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past; and VHS tapes that showed trailers of upcoming Nintendo 64 games like Pokemon, Star Fox 64, and Banjo-Kazooie. But now the the rise of online media has taken over, thanks to a faster and cheaper way to reach to the public; this meant grave news for the print industry, and despite its popularity in the past, Nintendo Power could not catch up with popular video game blogs and websites. In 2007, Nintendo gave away the publishing and distribution rights to the magazine to Future U.S., Inc. The picture shown is the first issue of Nintendo Power under the new publisher.

At his recent earnings presentation last month, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata gave his reasons why they gave up on Nintendo Power.

As for Nintendo Power magazine, it has contributed greatly so far in selling NES and SNES, which Nintendo had to start from scratch in the U.S.

Back then, publishing and distributing a monthly magazine was the most practical way to connect consumers and manufacturers. Now we have a much higher frequency of connecting with consumers online than traditional print publications. Online also has an advantage with lower cost and speed. As so many media are shifting from print to online, we also wanted to shift how we primarily connect with our consumers, and going from our paper publication, Nintendo Power, to online as the center of our message delivery efforts to our consumers. Part of the team that moved to New York included Nintendo's web content team, and they are working with an increased number of staff. -- MTV Multiplayer

So what is something that you can do online at the Nintendo website? For one, they now have Club Nintendo here in the U.S. At their website, register your Nintendo games and receive "Coins" to get exclusive rewards like the Game & Watch Collection for the DS and Animal Crossing Playing Cards.