Super Nintendo: The Game-Changing Company That Unlocked the Power of Play was released on February 3rd, 2026. For someone like me who loves Nintendo and has done so for much of my life, I’ll always dive into content about the company. Short articles, long editorials, I like to explore corners of the Japanese game-maker I haven’t yet uncovered. Author Keza MacDonald achieves something in Super Nintendo that I think many other Nintendo content pieces fail to do: inform and teach the reader while acknowledging how personal these games feel to us all.

For those unfamiliar with MacDonald’s work, they are a lifelong gamer and a renowned video games journalist currently working for The Guardian. Across numerous chapters centered around Nintendo’s brightest, and not so brightest, IP, MacDonald seeks to uncover how a few truths central to Nintendo’s mission since entering the games space persist through its projects. A huge part of that is the idea of play in general, and why so many of us resonate with Mario, Link, Samus, and the slew of other iconic characters from the company.

With chapters on Super Mario Bros. or The Legend of Zelda, MacDonald walks us through countless interviews they and other journalists have conducted with top Nintendo creatives over the years. We gain valuable insights from fan-favorite President Satoru Iwata and industry legend Shigeru Miyamoto. There’s also a great connection to the current crop of developers and talent at Nintendo, responsible for recent titles like Super Mario Wonder and Kirby and the Forgotten Land.

I finish just over 100 books every year as a personal challenge. Often, nonfiction work on a topic I enjoy requires extensive review. I half expected Super Nintendo to center around the same facts we all know at this point. Yes, Nintendo made playing cards. Yes, Kirby was named after a lawyer, but what I was pleased to see was MacDonald reveal some lesser-known info about our favorite titles, and more importantly, expertly tie them back to key points of psyche and strategy that make Nintendo who they are today.

A great example is the Nintendo Labo project launched for the Switch. Of course, it didn’t become some massive hit like Wii Sports, despite having the same central principles. A concept that aimed to connect the player’s gaming habits to the physical world. It would have been easy to criticize the Labo concept and use the chapter to reveal why even Nintendo sometimes misses the mark in its quest to stay true to what it embodies. MacDonald rises above the easy jabs to point out that, win or lose, few companies stay true to themselves like Nintendo.

Even a huge fan like myself can shake their head from time to time, wondering why Nintendo does the things it does. A talking flower toy from Wonder and Alarmo comes to mind, and both of those are just extremely recent examples. MacDonald’s Super Nintendo doesn’t attempt to excuse Nintendo’s uniqueness; it explains it. Without judgment, this book’s chronicling of top IP that has sold hundreds of millions of games globally is a tale of why Sony and Microsoft can’t hold a candle to Nintendo’s sense of self and philosophy, even if both companies make equally great games.

MacDonald also does a wonderful job of weaving personal anecdotes into the overviews. Many nonfiction authors who do this end up either distracting from the tale they’re telling or making more of a memoir than a retrospective. There’s such a great balance here that succeeds in not only humanizing the Nintendo philosophy but also encouraging the reader to reflect on their memories within the Mushroom Kingdom, Hyrule, or Splatsville, which I completely forgot is literally what the city in Splatoon 3 is called.

From Animal Crossing to Metroid, Nintendo’s games are seeped into my gaming life forever. Revisiting the stories behind the people who made these iconic franchises is a treat for any gamer who wants more context on how something like Breath of the Wild comes to be, or why every mainline Mario game seems so simple yet innovative. A must-read for Nintendo fans and game enthusiasts, this book joins the ranks of the best nonfiction retrospectives about video games.

Super Nintendo: The Game-Changing Company That Unlocked the Power of Play by Keza MacDonald is out now in physical copies, ebook, and audiobook. I’ll give a special shoutout to the latter; MacDonald provides narration and does a stellar job.

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