BODY: Japan's longest-running Nintendo-only magazine is leaning hard into two of the year's biggest first-party releases. Tokuma Shoten will publish the October 2026 issue of Nintendo DREAM on August 21, priced at ¥1,280 (roughly $8.50), and the draw for many buyers won't be the pages at all—it's what's tucked inside.
The headline freebies come from Splatoon Raiders and Fire Emblem: Thousand Colors. Readers get a set of postcards featuring the Squid Squad alliance from Splatoon Raiders, plus two long-format posters showing off the protagonists of Fire Emblem: Thousand Colors. It's the kind of physical-goods bundle that has kept Japanese game magazines alive well into the download era.
Beyond the bonuses, the issue delivers what Nintendo DREAM does best: hands-on strategy guides, pre-release impressions, and the magazine's signature travel-flavored reporting. Coverage is built around helping players get a head start on both featured titles before launch, alongside the editorial team's picks of games worth watching this season.
Both titles are marquee moments for Nintendo. Splatoon Raiders marks a new direction for the ink-splashing franchise, while Fire Emblem: Thousand Colors—rendered in Japanese as "FE万紫千紅," a phrase evoking a riot of colors—continues the strategy-RPG series' strong run.
The insider take
Furoku (freebie inserts) are serious business in Japan's magazine trade, and Nintendo DREAM has long understood that a well-chosen postcard set or poster can move copies that articles alone cannot. What's telling here is the pairing: Tokuma is betting a single issue can capture two very different fandoms at once—competitive Splatoon players and Fire Emblem's collector-minded RPG crowd. In a print market that has shrunk dramatically over two decades, "NinDori," as fans affectionately call it, survives precisely because it treats readers as collectors first. Expect the postcards to surface on Mercari within days.
Originally reported by GAME Watch (Japanese).