Club Nintendo was the magazine Nintendo sent to members of its European fan club, starting in 1989. It began as one magazine printed in three languages, English, German and Dutch, so that a child in Coventry, Hamburg or Breukelen opened the same pages in the same order. Within three years the German edition had become a different magazine, made in Germany by Nintendo’s European headquarters, and it was still being published at the end of 1998.
One magazine, three languages
The first issues were made in England. All three name the same editor, Mark Smith, as “Editor”, “Herausgeber” or “Redakteur”, and all three were typeset and printed by Catalyst Publishing of Warwick, with a cover by Paddy Reardon of Reardon Graphics in Devon. The German issue credits its text to Christian Weikert and Monika Uiberall. Each carries the same notice that the Club Nintendo name was used with the permission of Nintendo Co., Ltd., and each is headed by the same president: “Super Mario!”
The contents match page for page. Page 2 is a list of every NES cartridge then available, with a box beside each so readers could tick off the games they owned. Page 3 is a “Letter From Super Mario!”, in German “Ein Brief von Super Mario!” and in Dutch “Brief van Super Mario!”. “Hi and welcome to the first issue of ‘Club Nintendo’, the official Nintendo magazine!” it begins in English, and Mario promises reviews of Top Gun, The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros., a look at “one of Nintendo’s next releases, Super Mario Bros. 2”, and a list of games “with a check box next to each”. Page 19 explains how to send in a high score: photograph the television screen with an ordinary 35 mm camera, pause the game, turn off the lights and do not use a flash. The German version adds that a long exposure helps.
What changed between editions was the club’s address: PO Box 30, Coventry, for Britain; Postfach 54 09 47, Hamburg, for Germany, with the same hotline number printed for callers in Austria and Switzerland; and Postbus 184, Breukelen, for the Netherlands. The Dutch issue also credits Tokuma Shoten, the Japanese magazine publisher, alongside Catalyst and Nintendo for photography and design.
Readers were compared across borders, too. The “Scores of Fun” table in the fifth British issue of 1989 lists players from Britain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands side by side.
The German edition goes its own way
For its first two years the German edition was the same magazine in German. Its 1989 issues name Mark Smith, as the English and Dutch ones do, and so do its issues as late as June 1991. The first sign of a separate German operation came in a special issue: the 1990 Club Nintendo Classic, about the NES and Game Boy, said it was published “by Nintendo of Europe GmbH in cooperation with Tokuma Shoten Publishing Co., Ltd.” and gave the club’s address as Nintendo of Europe in Großostheim.
The regular German magazine followed later in 1991. By October its masthead had changed completely: Shigeru Ota as publisher, Ron S. Lakos as editor-in-chief, its own editorial staff, typesetting in Frankfurt and Tokuma Shoten Publishing GmbH as publishing house, with lithography by Dai Nippon Printing and printing still in England. The English and Dutch editions went on naming Mark Smith as editor into 1992. A later Club Nintendo Classic, copyright 1993, names Ron S. Lakos as editor-in-chief and two project leaders, Rié Ishii (national) and Atsuko Matsumoto (international).
How long it lasted
Public sources do not give an end date for any of the editions, but the magazines show how far each one ran. British issues are known from as late as mid-1993: the third issue of volume 5 gives a competition closing date of 2 July 1993, and the club’s address by then was PO Box 42, Eastleigh, in Hampshire. The Dutch edition reached its fourth volume, in 1992, with its address moved to Tiel. The German edition was still going at the end of 1998, in its tenth volume, and its December 1998 issue looked ahead to issue 1/99.
By then Club Nintendo was no longer the only “official Nintendo magazine” in Britain. From October 1992 EMAP published Nintendo Magazine System, a commercial magazine that used the same description and printed Nintendo’s characters and trademarks under licence.
Sources
- Club Nintendo (British edition) No. 1, 1989: masthead (editor Mark Smith; Catalyst Publishing, Warwick; cover by Paddy Reardon), pp. 2–3 (cartridge checklist, “Letter From Super Mario!”), p. 19 (high scores and photography), p. 20 (Super Mario Bros. 2).
- Club Nintendo (German edition) No. 1, 1989: masthead (Herausgeber Mark Smith; text by Christian Weikert and Monika Uiberall; Catalyst Publishing, Warwick; Hamburg club office and hotline), p. 3, p. 19.
- Club Nintendo (Dutch edition) No. 1, 1989: masthead (Redakteur Mark Smith; Tokuma Shoten credit; Breukelen address), p. 3.
- Club Nintendo (British edition) No. 5, 1989, p. 17: “Scores of Fun”.
- Club Nintendo (British edition) No. 1/91 and volume 4, issue 6 (1992): masthead, editor Mark Smith; volume 5, issue 3 (1993): competition closing date and Eastleigh address.
- Club Nintendo (Dutch edition) volume 4, issue 6 (1992): masthead, Redacteur Mark Smith; Tiel address.
- Club Nintendo Classic (German edition), 1990, p. 3: publication statement and Großostheim address.
- Club Nintendo (German edition) No. 1/91 and Jahrgang 4 Ausgabe 3, June 1991: masthead, Herausgeber Mark Smith; Ausgabe 5, October 1991: Impressum (Herausgeber Shigeru Ota, Chefredakteur Ron S. Lakos, German editorial staff, Tokuma Shoten Publishing GmbH); Ausgabe 1, February 1992: Impressum.
- Club Nintendo Classic (German edition), © 1993: Impressum.
- Club Nintendo (German edition) Jahrgang 10, Ausgabe 6, December 1998.
- Nintendo Magazine System issue 1, October 1992: “the official Nintendo magazine” and the licence notice.
See also
- Nintendo
- Nintendo Entertainment System
- Nintendo Power — Nintendo of America’s magazine
- Nintendo Magazine System