Ever bought any "official" gaming magazines?

mrmessy · February 2015

Like the official Xbox / Playstation / Nintendo magazines. What do you make of them? I have generally avoided them as I convinced myself that they were biased and therefore full of bullshlt.

However, I think I did buy some of the Playstation ones when I had a PS1 back in the day, because there were some rather good demo CDs stuck on the cover. But that's about it. I noticed the other day they still seem to be going strong.

JuanF. Ramirez · February 2015

I used to bought the Nintendo magazine about 15 years ago, when I bought a GBA.

Although it was very biased, it contained a lot of info about which games to buy.

zx1 · February 2015

I used to buy Amiga Format in the mid 90's when i had my A1200, then later when i had my PC i would occasionally buy PC Format.
I still buy Retrogamer now and again. I don't think people really buy gaming magazines much anymore.

GReW · February 2015

I subscribed to Club Nintendo in about 1990 (the first issue had a preview of Super Mario Bros. 3) It was OK for information about new games and walkthroughs, but it was pretty dry stuff.

A typical "review" would be about 50% material copied from the instructions and 50% corporate marketing hype.

I do recall the high score challenge competitions where you had to send in a photograph of your tv screen as "proof", there was one reader who'd obviously written on the screen in pen to turn a 0 into an 8; and won a GameBoy!

Vampyre · February 2015

Well I used to buy Crash and sometimes YS and SU ;-)

I suppose the only other single formats were PC Format and PC Zone irregularly, and The One (for Atari ST) when that went single format focused. Outside of the Speccy mags I always preferred the multi-platform mags.

Bermondsey Bob · February 2015

I used to buy the official Xbox magazine before I got my 360 online in order to get the demos, but stopped buying it once I was online. They can be a bit biased at times, the Nintendo one was terrible for that back in the day, but if a games a real turkey, they tend to say so. I found that if a systems game is superior on one format (Bayonetta was much better on Xbox than PS3 for example) then they'll flaunt it, but if its better on the other system then they'll usually gloss over them.

But, sometimes they'll get a good exclusive feature on a big game, but I don't read them anymore. I'll have a flick through one in Smiths if there's one open, but that's about it.

Retrobrothers · February 2015

I used to get (for free!) all the Newsfield mags back in the day: Crash, Amtix, Zzap, LM....

I was lucky. Got them 'hot off the press' before they hit the shops.
I then moved onto the Amiga and used to buy
The One
The Games Machine
Amiga Power
Amiga Action

Then later I would read PC User, PC Gamer, PC Format...

I sometime buy Retro Gamer but that's it for these days.

At one time the mags were the only source of information so we an essential purchase. These days you can go online and find out anything you want.

joefish · February 2015

The original PS1 Playstation one was very good, as was the initial XBox one.
I found the Nintendo one particularly childish.

As for bias, in what way would you say they were biased? I wouldn't have accused them of such, but I don't know what they're like now. Obviously as a single-format magazine they favour that format, they did get cover disks, and they did get some access to developments that others did not. But I never noted any bias in reviewing first party titles over third.

def chris · February 2015

mrmessy wrote: »

However, I think I did buy some of the Playstation ones when I had a PS1 back in the day, because there were some rather good demo CDs stuck on the cover.

yes this basically. remember spending ages on rollcage and tony hawks 1 demos from the coverdisks

joefish wrote: »

The original PS1 Playstation one was very good

was this the one that would have a glossary of every game available up to that point in the back of each issue , with a short review? found that useful anyway

MattLamb · February 2015

Yes, I bought Official UK PlayStation Magazine back in the day. It was by Future Publishing, and as said had some great demos on the front - still got them in fact, and was playing them at the weekend with my five year old daughter.

It may have been biased, but I didn't notice if it was.

zx1 · February 2015

My brother used to buy Gamemaster when he had his Master System and later on his Megadrive.
I think he also bought a Sega magazine but i can't remember the name of it.

ewgf · February 2015

In the days of the original XBox, I did often get the Official XBox magazine, but I can't remember how it differed from the non-official XBox magazines. In the N64 days, I never bought Nintendo Official Magazine (I mainly stuck to N64 Magazine, which despite the unimaginative name, was by far the best N64 magazine),

but a friend of mine got it every month, and it was *awful*. Seriously, even Sinclair User at it's worst (Kamikaze Bear and all) was whole orders of magnitude better and more mature than Nintendo Official Magazine - NOM was so juvenile and badly planned/written. As far as I can recall, it's reviews consisted of random screenshots of the game pasted all over the pages, with no regard for game spoilers, and the text was badly written and unintelligent.

But that was nothing compared to the bias - when they reviewed anything by Nintendo, then it was always praised for higher than it deserved, and when they did a round up of similar items (such as peripherals, memory cards, etc) then the Nintendo product(s) always won by miles (from what I remember) even if the Nintendo one was much more expensive, much less powerful, and however else inferior to the competition.

Seriously, they didn't even try to hide the bias.

I've not bought many XBox 360 magazines, I mainly buy magazines (console, PC, Linux, science) as an impulse buy when waiting for the train, so I can't remember how the official XBox 360 magazines stacks up to the others. And I don't think (could be wrong) that I've ever bought a Playstation 3 (or PS2) magazine, so I can't judge there.

The only two magazines I buy every issue of now are Retro Gamer (subscription) and Micro Mart. The former is good, and the latter is more habit than anything, though they do have some good articles (not indepth, but good starting points if the subject interests me).

zx1 · February 2015

zx1 wrote: »

My brother used to buy Gamemaster when he had his Master System and later on his Megadrive.
I think he also bought a Sega magazine but i can't remember the name of it.

EDIT: He told me it was Sega Power

Graz · February 2015

Official UK PlayStation Magazine. Okay, so they frequently gave dodgy scores, but the info was sound.

mel the bell · February 2015

i have to name em all? :o

VanTammen · February 2015

In Portugal, the Nintendo Magazine (during the SNES days) was a complete joke, every game for the SNES acording to them was perfect... I don't think they had a single bad review of any game! it wasn't helpfull at all in terms buying games.

I bough the PS1 oficial magazine for a while, as i did with the Ps2, mostly for the demos.

I remember on one fo the PS magazines, came a patch for Sillent Hill 1 (or was it resi 3... not sure) that completely ruined me a memory card...

WhizzBang · February 2015

Official UK Playstation Magazine. I remember it being veryu good for its first couple of years or so but went downhill a lot later.

Ever bought any "official" gaming magazines?

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