Future close Official Xbox Magazine with immediate effect; final issue on sale April 3

PC Gamer is serving the master race so they aren't going to ditch that obviously! :roll:

I think we can rely on occam's razor for this one - simplest assumption is that OXM just costs more to produce and brings in less and therefore is the easiest title from their library to ditch.

jawa4 wrote:My worry is for Retro Gamer. It remains a good mag - despite apparent recent poor judgement in allegedly ripping off an idea from the Computing Museum

I've not heard about this, what happened?

Future do a lot of bookazines and special edition one offs, so maybe there will be something for the launch of the new Xbox. It'll feel strange not having anything. For major games I also liked purchasing a guide book too (would have definitely bought it for Final Fantasy VII and Resident Evil 3).

KK wrote:
jawa4 wrote:My worry is for Retro Gamer. It remains a good mag - despite apparent recent poor judgement in allegedly ripping off an idea from the Computing Museum

I've not heard about this, what happened?...

twitter.com/computermuseum/status/1238855924611198977

twitter.com/computermuseum/status/1239162348159582211

It seems that - allegedly! - Retro Gamer magazine and/or Future had agreed a deal with the museum to use their "top trump"-style computer cards as a gift with the mag but then decided to make their own versions instead. It sounds a bit scummy but I don't know any facts beyond those tweets from the Computer Museum!

KK wrote:...Future do a lot of bookazines and special edition one offs, so maybe there will be something for the launch of the new Xbox. It'll feel strange not having anything. For major games I also liked purchasing a guide book too (would have definitely bought it for Final Fantasy VII and Resident Evil 3).

Yeah, in recent years the bookazine format (which, for those that may not know, is a 100-odd page "special focus" mag that is punted out for £10-£12) has been a popular style for magazine publishers. Maybe they'll continue to do a couple of those each month.

Just noticed the magazine marginally increased its sales figures from 2018 to 2019 (15,022 up from 14,813). :fp:

Corona would have hit them, but there's no reason to see why sales wouldn't have increased for Winter. Their highest selling issue in 2019 was Cyberpunk 2077 (September issue) on 16,957. With a great Resident Evil 'free' gift, they actually got sales all the way up to 18,087 (January 2019 issue, released in Christmas of 2018). Their sales dropped for their Christmas 2019 and January 2020 issues (13,630 and 13,546 respectively) but they had Disintegration on the cover (a bit niche, no?) and Dying Light 2. Over that hurdle and this year you've got the likes of Resident Evil 3, Halo and a new Xbox to contend with.

The subscriber covers have even been going for over 20 quid on eBay: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/XBOX-OFFICIA ... w7yVebohZ; https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OFFICIAL-XBO ... SwKY9eY9~L

I managed to pick up a copy in WHSmith today. No mention of it being their last issue, so they definitely didn't have much forewarning they were about to be closed. I can't remember the last gaming magazine that went out like this with no acknowledgment it was ending, certainly one that has been going for so long - maybe Official Dreamcast magazine in 2001 (they were supposed to come back a few months later but never did).

It still isn't available to purchase on their website either, despite other new issues since the lockdown struck being up, so it's possible if you really want it you'll have to get it from either WHSmith or a supermarket. It's a good issue too, including a proper 2 page review of Two Point Hospital (hurrah!).

How did they survive by just selling 15,000 copies? I really see no merit in having videogames magazines anymore as we can get the latest news online and immediately. It was nice back in the day reading about the latest game or console, but now its a waste of money.

gamerforever wrote:How did they survive by just selling 15,000 copies? I really see no merit in having videogames magazines anymore as we can get the latest news online and immediately. It was nice back in the day reading about the latest game or console, but now its a waste of money.

Advertises I guess. I do miss good game magazines of the early 00’s though. The shelf was full of them.

gaminglegend wrote:
gamerforever wrote:How did they survive by just selling 15,000 copies? I really see no merit in having videogames magazines anymore as we can get the latest news online and immediately. It was nice back in the day reading about the latest game or console, but now its a waste of money.

Advertises I guess. I do miss good game magazines of the early 00’s though. The shelf was full of them.

Who would advertise to such a low number of people though? I know there’s digital copies too.

I think unlike America where you have to sell hundreds of thousands, you can break even over here on something like 10,000.

There’s very little advertising in Future’s gaming magazines these days.

gamerforever wrote:I really see no merit in having videogames magazines anymore as we can get the latest news online and immediately.

Quality games writing and humorous features. Don't get me wrong, there's the odd place online that does some entertaining gaming stuff (as opposed to just reporting on the news), but they tend to be run by ex-magazine staffers anyway. (Chris Scullion's Tired Old Hack springs to mind.) I don't at all miss the news; I do slightly miss the six-to-eight page reviews of big games, where the writers would take their time and the quality was obviously higher than most of today's online pieces as a result; but I definitely miss the funny gaming stuff that NGamer and its forebears used to pack in.

It wasn't enough to keep them selling I guess.

Future close Official Xbox Magazine with immediate effect; final issue on sale April 3

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