The man Himself!

Starting up your own website is tough..but your own magazine?! What may seem to daunting to some is actually fun for some of us-I interview Keith Lutener, owner and writer of "NesBit" I UK based magazine that focuses on Nintendo's first Home Console-The Nintendo Entertainment System or lovingly known as the "Nes"

Your Age and nationality, where you were born

I’m 31 (going on 60!) and was born in the UK.

A little about yourself growing up, what interested you and what captured your interests

I was just an ordinary kid growing up who happened to receive a Commodore 16 on his 4^th birthday, pretty much the start of my gaming career. Moving on to the Spectrum and consoles in later year I’ve been addicted to gaming ever since.

What drove you to become so invested in the NES?

For several years I had been a collector of pretty much everything retro. Consoles and games lining cupboards lots of which weren’t getting any use, every so often I’d have the urge to have a clear out. But each time it came to choose a system to keep I could never quite get rid of the NES.

I think it’s a strong mix of nostalgia and something I could never get hold of as a kid. Everyone else was crazy for the NES back then and I ended up with a Sega Master System, so a lot of calling round “friends” houses playing their NES.

Where did you get the idea to start NES-Bit-the site-and what finally drove you to go ahead and make an actual magazine?

For about 2 years I ran a fairly popular YouTube channel posting reviews and commentaries on random retro games. As time went on I started to wonder if there was anything else I could do and an idea for my own written site was born. Next thing I know I was trying to pick a system and realised just how little attention the NES received in the UK, hardly anything online dedicated to it. So NES-Bit was born.

Did the magazine meet your expectations? Did it turn out the way you wanted in the end?

It surpassed my expectations if I’m honest; I was actually surprised how popular it has been. The requests for printed copies have been almost overwhelming. The main aim was to bring more people to the site and I’d had a few offers of donations to keep the site running. Rather than put up a begging section I thought a good way would be to offer something extra for those who wanted to contribute.

From the start I was hoping for even more pages but sadly the world of printing is a bit of a mine field and we had to trim the content in places. This means we have more articles to be done for Issue 2.

What are your future plans for the Magazine and Nes-Bit.com?

The biggest is to get Issue 2 finished and well underway.

Eventually I’d like to complete all of the database section for the site (all the game releases and hardware/accessories) and thanks to a recent trip to a retro trader we had the biggest update ever. Hundreds of photo’s of games and gear, pretty much filled 2 thirds of the database. I’m forever working on it these days and recently uploaded over a 100 game play videos and screenshots for every game ever released. It’s funny looking at it all just how much effort