Nintendo Power also produces a series of strategy magazines called Official Guides from Nintendo Power. The first OGNP was simply called The Official Nintendo Player's Guide. When Nintendo Power switched from a bi-monthly magazine to a monthly magazine in May 1990, every other issue was a strategy guide focused on a single game. This didn't last long, however, and only four such strategy guides were released. The magazine claimed this was because the strategy guides were intended to review the games that they considered the best, but they eventually abandoned the concept upon realizing that the best games usually come out shortly before Christmas. Starting in January 1991, Nintendo Power became a full fledged monthly magazine with issue #20. Issues prior to that have become highly collectible.
The first four Nintendo Player's Guides in book format were the NES Game Atlas (featuring maps of popular NES franchises), Game Boy (featuring select Game Boy games), Mario Mania (featuring information about Nintendo's mascot, Mario, but was mostly a full strategy guide of the then-new Super Mario World), and Super NES (featuring select Super NES games). All four were mailed free to subscribers of Nintendo Power in 1992. Later, a fifth free Player's Guide, Top Secret Passwords, featured passwords (and a few cheats) for selected NES, Super NES and Game Boy games. This guide was sent to subscribers who were now in the Super Power Club. Though originally billed as a subscriber exclusive, it was eventually sold at retailers.
Beginning with The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Player's Guides adopted a "one specific game" format, much like the earlier Nintendo Power Strategy Guides. They are separate entities from the magazine itself. The concept is now emulated by other publishing companies such as Brady Games or Prima for Nintendo and other video game consoles. Almost all major Nintendo video games released from then to 2007 had an OGNP associated with it.
OGNPs are often sold at video game retailers, magazine stands and can also be ordered directly from Nintendo Power. Most Nintendo Power subscription packages include a free OGNP as an incentive.
With all of the FAQs for video games on the internet in modern times, OGNPs have suffered lower sales, and have long been a major incentive used for renewing subscription through the mail. T-shirts and the like are offered on occasion through the mail-in offers, however, by subscribing through the internet, many more premiums are available (more T-shirts, for example).
As of mid-2007, Nintendo seems to have quietly discontinued the series after the publication of the guide for Pokémon Battle Revolution. Guides for popular games, including recent releases, are going out of stock at the Nintendo online store. No guide was published for Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and none have been announced for soon-to-be-released major Nintendo projects. However, Chris Slate stated in Issue #223 that the project is on hiatus.
Nintendo now outsources production of official guides to Prima Games. This can be seen with Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, and Super Mario Galaxy, among others. For The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, and "Mario Kart Wii," Prima released "special digest" versions of those games' strategy guides, which were NP subscriber bonuses (as such, they carried the label "Supplement to Nintendo Power Magazine"). These have been the only such guides since 2007.
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