Respect it or not, Nintendo is very particular about who can use and distribute their properties. This has been made very clear in the last 24 hours. First, the Metroid 2: Return of Samus remake done by fans was shot down once it hit distribution. Now, Nintendo has removed an archive that contained over 100 issues of its beloved Nintendo Power Magazine.
The Internet Archive had a collection of the magazines, and was giving them away for free on its page. This had been going on for months, then, around last week, a bunch of fans took notice of it. Naturally, they got it, and started spreading the word around. This eventually led to Nintendo finding out about it, and quickly revoked the sites ability to distribute it.
When asked by Polygon what the reason for this was, they repeated a common phrase of theirs, “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.”
Nintendo Power was for a long time a great source of news and insight into Nintendo and its titles. It had reviews, news, comics and more. All for the sake of pleasing fans. The collection above had over half the magazines run in it. Showing fans a wealth of history for no cost. This especially hurts as the magazine has been gone for four years. And though Nintendo has more than made up for its absence with the Nintendo Directs and other digital news posts, there was just something special about Nintendo Power.
