COLUMN: 'Game Mag Weaseling': You Call Y'self Hardcore?

['Game Mag Weaseling' is a weekly column by Kevin Gifford which covers video game magazines from the late '70s all the way up to right now.]

   

Well, you're not hardcore, because otherwise you would've subscribed to Super Gaming, Sendai Publishing's magazine devoted entirely to Japan-only video games.

Here is how Sendai advertised Super Gaming in their own magazines, including Electronic Gaming Monthly and Mega Play:

Are you the type of video game player who has always wanted to know about the latest games and systems but could never find a magazine devoted entirely to what's new and in the future? Not just games for the Genesis, Turbo and Nintendo, but also previews of Japanese titles that won't arrive on these shores for years -- if ever!

Now the editors of Electronic Gaming Monthly, always the first word in video games, has created a magazine especially for you! Super Gaming will take you where no other game magazine has ever gone before, with the latest news and game previews for your Sega 16-bit, NEC or Nintendo systems! With Super Gaming you will know about the hottest carts of tomorrow today, as well as new developments and game systems!

   

All four issues of Super Gaming released were only 32 pages long, but they were available both on a subscription and at the newsstand, as the Electronics Boutique price stickers on my issues indicate. The contents mostly read like a "lite" version of the EGM of the time -- lots of little previews divided up by console, a handful of large features packed with colorful screenshots, and not a heck of a lot of real in-depth content. Starting with issue 2, the magazine had its own review section, covering nothing but Japan imports and featuring scores from editor Mike Riley, associate editor Ken Williams and someone named "Samrye" (get it? huh?!!).

Unfortunately, this sort coverage meant that the only advertisers interested in such a magazine were mail-order shops that specialized in Japanese games. The magazine failed to become a marketplace success, and so with the third issue Super Gaming repositioned itself as a "video game preview" magazine, with early coverage of both Japanese and American games. This failed to make much of a difference, though, and the magazine folded after one final issue, which dropped the Japan stuff entirely and devoted most of its pages to 1991 Winter CES coverage instead.

So there you have it -- probably the most obscure Sendai Publishing title, and one that folded before it could find any sort of niche in the marketplace. It's certainly not a good magazine by any stretch of the imagination. So why do I care? Because I'm trying to get everything Sendai ever published -- and completing this Super Gaming collection was damned difficult, because the mags go for way too much money online and are impossible to find elsewhere. So, that's another Sendai title complete...now I just need to figure out where to find copies of Hero Illustrated and Internet Underground...

[Kevin Gifford breeds ferrets and runs Magweasel, a site for collectors and fans of old video-game and computer magazines. He's also an editor at Newtype USA magazine.]