LO6: Critical Analysis

This is the official Xbox magazine for the US and the UK and has been running for a number of years producing articles on news and reviews about current and upcoming Xbox releases both exclusive to the console or multiplatform. This magazine helps readers to gain a more of an insight into the world of gaming and make more informed decisions about their purchases in this regard. The cover shares many features with the PlayStation Magazine and Nintendo Magazine such as the consistant mast head and use of shapes on the cover to draw the readers attention to the important parts of the cover.Text hierarchy is also very effectively utilised to help direct the reader around the cover page to the important parts of the page.

This is the official Nintendo magazine. It is a magazine that contains a varying degree of articles, news, reviews and fan essentials including tips, cheats, artist spaces as well as editorial notes attaining to the meaning behind choices made in regards to the magazine itself.This an incredibly popular magazine since its inception in 2006 and has become a staple of video game media and a trusted source for all news ‘Nintendo’. It includes new releases, reviews, news and even competition sections that the readers can take part in.

As you can see the front over of the magazine is bright and cheerful with bold colours and an image that relates to a recent release or the articles included inside the pages of the magazine itself. This issue for example contains a celebratory article that cronologues the 20 years of Super Mario and so the cover illustrates this through the use of bright imagery containing many of the Mario series’ iconic characters as wel as text graphics that tell the reader exactly what they can expect from this issue of the magazine. This however is not to disimilar to the Official Playstation magazine when it as they both make use of bright text and imagery despite it holding a more serious tone.

This is the official Playstation Magazine for the UK and details news reviews, tips and tricks as well as pro competition stats and even teasers and pre-release bonus news and even competitions for readers to take part in. As you can see, this is a bit busier than the Nintendo magazine and uses a more serious and appropriate image for the target audience of the Playstation as unlike Nintendo, most of the games released on the Playstationplatforms are FPS and horror games where as Nintendo more directly targets a younger audience. The text graphics however are bold and bright as to grab the readers attention as well as to contrast the gritty and dark imagery.

The PlayStation magazine is made out of a glossy paper just like the Nintendo and even Xbox magazine. This quality is because of the premium price of the product as most of these magazines will sell for between 4 and 6 pounds each.