After the seventh issue of the Nintendo Fun Club News, Phillips and his team worked on rebooting the bi-monthly newsletter into a full-blown magazine titled Nintendo Power. In March of 1988, Tilden was promoted to Director of Publications and shifted focus to the creation of a monthly video game magazine. During this time Tilden founded the Nintendo Power magazine and was responsible for the entire publication division of Nintendo of America. She served as the editor-in-chief of the magazine and was also involved with the creation of Nintendo Power’s Guides, a series of video game strategy guides.

The magazine focused on gaming news, previews, reviews and strategies and was designed to inform and assist consumers with everything offered on Nintendo platforms. Tilden filled the role of Editor-in-Chief of the magazine which was an instant success right from the start.  Nintendo Power, which became a monthly magazine shortly after its debut, also featured a column written by Phillips at the end of each issue which he devoted to thanking the readers and explaining the process of creating the issue. Phillips was co-editor and gameplay fact checker for the magazine throughout his time with Nintendo.  Nintendo Power’s “Howard and Nester” comic strip series portrayed his real self in cartoon form, opposite a fictional boy who symbolizes all the Nintendo playing children of the world and gave Phillips a direct voice to audience’s homes.

Nintendo teamed up with Tokuma Shoten, one of Japan’s largest publishers to come up with the magazine’s design.  Tokuma Shoten was the outfit behind the Japanese “Family Computer Magazine”, Japan’s first console-specific magazine.  Nintendo of America hired some of Tokuma’s game editors to contribute with the creation of the Nintendo Power’s visual design resulting in a very Japanese inspired style.  The incorporation of spot illustrations, colorful backdrops and lots of scattered text made each page interesting and intriguing to the readers.    The international design scheme struck a chord with the North American audience and was the perfect match for the young gamers of the 1980s and early 1990s.

The first issue dated July/August 1988 spotlights Super Mario Bros. 2 for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Nintendo published 3.6 million copies of the first issue of Nintendo Power and provided every member of the Nintendo Fun Club with free copies. This was a $10 million investment that was sponsored by Minoru Arakawa, President of Nintendo of America which quickly proved to be successful. Nintendo sold individual copies of Nintendo Power in stores but also offered a subscription base model. In the first six months of the launch of the magazine Nintendo achieved over 1.1 million paid subscribers.  It became the longest-running North American console gaming magazine and at its peak in 1993 it was the largest kids’ magazine in North America.

In the early years, editorial coverage was decided upon by Gail Tilden, editor-in-chief and Howard Phillips, co-editor and “President” of Nintendo’s Fun Club.  The actual articles were written by in-house staff, most of who were selected from Nintendo of America’s telephone support hotline and game counselors.   All coverage received final approval from NOA President Minoru Arakawa, Vice President Peter Main and Senior Vice President and General Counsel Howard Lincoln.

Nintendo Power was immensely successful achieving more than 2 million readers in 1989 and had a total audience of over 6 million by the end of 1990.  Its circulation remained over a million copies before the launch of the Nintendo 64 in 1996 but readership started to drop extensively as its audience aged and with the rise of the internet.  By the early 2000s the image of the magazine became stale, something the editorial team addressed in 2005 with an extensive redesign that eliminated the last remnants of the Tokuma-era design turning the magazine into a modern looking game magazine.

On September 19, 2007, Nintendo announced that they would no longer independently run the publication and that they have contracted the large magazine publisher “Future US” to publish Nintendo Power going forward.  The first issue that was published by “Future US” was volume 222, December 2007.  Under the direction of “Future US” the circulation of the magazine increased to 13 issues per year, with the inclusion of an extra holiday season bonus issue released at the end of each year that began in 2007.

On August 21, 2012, Nintendo announced that they had decided not to renew the licensing agreement with Future Publishing and that Nintendo Power would cease publication after 24 years.  The final issue was released on December 2012 and was the 285^th volume released since it’s inception.  Nintendo of America announced on December 20, 2017 that Nintendo Power would make its official return in the form of a podcast, hosted by former Editor-in-Chief of the original magazine, Chris Slate.