Here's a glimpse at the origins, history, and general purpose of the world's best Nintendo podcast.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/feature/23802
Radio Free Nintendo is the flagship podcast of Nintendo World Report. The name is inspired by Radio Free Europe, maybe pretentiously so, but we do believe strongly in presenting independent viewpoints on gaming culture and industry. For instance, while RFN is always focused on Nintendo topics, the podcast crew are all multi-platform gamers who frequently discuss content not available on any Nintendo platform. If nothing else, we believe this broad view gives us even more perspective on what we love (and what drives us crazy) about Nintendo and its games. Likewise, while we obviously adore Nintendo and have been playing their systems and games for many years, we are freely critical of the company and encourage our listeners to be so as well. We believe that thoughtful analysis and intelligent discussion can increase everyone's enjoyment of video games.
Since mid-2006, we bring you a new weekly episode of Radio Free Nintendo, full of game impressions, feature discussions, retrospectives on classic games, and answers to our listeners' questions. It's all completely free and easily accessible with our podcast feeds and weekly articles. On this page, you'll also find a complete archive RFN episodes, going back to the very first conversations between the show's co-founders, Mike Sklens and Evan Burchfield. Other regular members of the podcast, past and present, include Karl Castaneda, Stan Ferguson, Jonathan Metts, Jon Lindemann, James Jones, and Greg Leahy. Many other Nintendo World Report staff members have appeared on RFN from time to time. Special guests from outside our ranks have included Billy Berghammer (founder of NWR), Chris Kohler (Wired's Game|Life), Mike Krahulik (Penny Arcade's "Gabe"), George Harrison (Nintendo of America), Keiichi Yano (iNiS), and Jeff Kalles (Penny Arcade). Also, RFN's first recording with a live audience, "Radio Free Nintendo: A Live Nintendo Podcast for Grown-Ups", was part of the inaugural Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) East in Boston, March 26, 2010.
Over the years, many listeners have asked how we make RFN. Since the crew is scattered all over the world, we rely on two free programs: Skype and Audacity. We connect in an online conference call via Skype, and each person records his own voice (not the entire conversation) with Audacity. When recording is finished, we each upload the individual audio tracks to an FTP server. That's when the real work begins. The podcast editor mixes all of the voices together, using designated audio cues and attentive care to synchronize the voices so that they sound even more natural and cohesive than the original Skype call. The result, we hope, is a finished product that sounds like we could have all been sitting in the same room, just having a chat over a few beers. In truth, we rarely see each other in person, and some of us have in fact never met at all. In tribute to the immense effort and talent required to produce this show, the podcast editor is credited every week in the episode article.
Listening to RFN is easy. You can always download individual episodes from the weekly articles, which are archived below. Each article contains download links for both MP3 and AAC formats, as well as a description of that episode's content and links to forum threads and other online destinations we may have mentioned during the show. If you want to automatically get new episodes of RFN every week, try subscribing to one of the RSS feeds. The links below are compatible with any RSS reader program, podcast aggregator, or other music program. You can paste either feed link into iTunes (Advanced > Subscribe to Podcast), or simply click the iTunes link below and subscribe on the RFN podcast page within the program.
Radio Free Nintendo: the MP3 feed
Radio Free Nintendo: the AAC feed
The AAC version of the podcast is (usually) enhanced. What this means is that those listening to the podcast on an iPod or through Apple's iTunes will be able skip between chapters of the program, much like scenes on a DVD, and will also see art associated with each chapter. Furthermore, iTunes listeners can click these images to read more about the topics online.
You can also find Radio Free Nintendo in the iTunes Podcast Directory.
We highly encourage listener interaction with the show. You can email us through this contact form or the podcast email address, mentioned on every episode (but not here, to reduce spam). Also, every episode has an article listed on the podcast directory page, and each one of these articles has its own discussion thread in the Talkback area of our forums. We read and post in these threads all the time, so it's another easy way to interact. We also have a regular feature called RetroActive, in which the podcast team plays a game together for one or two on-air discussions. The twist is that our listeners choose which game we'll play! We set up discussion threads for each selected game, so you can play along at home and join the fun in our forums. Some of the best comments will be excerpted and read on the podcast to help fill out and motivate our own discussion. We start a new RetroActive every few weeks, so listen to the show for details!
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