Electronic Gaming Monthly is making a long-awaited return to newsstands in print and digital form this March through a partnership with Time Warner Retail Sales and Marketing.

For a yearly subscription, the magazine is offering a staggering 12 print issues of EGM and 52 digital issues of EGM (a total of 64 issues). There's been a lot of hype for EGM, but it doesn't seem like the fact that EGM will be a [i]weekly[/i] magazine publication has gotten a lot of attention. I'm not exactly well-versed in game magazine history, but I think this could be the first time a games publication has done this.

Although the snippet from EGM Now's press release doesn't mention how many pages are going to be in each issue, maintaining a weekly publication schedule should give any magazine producer nightmares (hopefully the online mag and print mag duties will be divvied up?).

The sneak peek of EGM's "lost issue”, looks slick and ready to integrate all sorts of multi-media, but is a bit of a throwback to the beginning of the last decade, with plenty of unnecessary Flash. But maybe that's just an old habit of reading the quiet print edition dieing hard. Aside from multi-media, EGM also plans to offer “coupons, DLC opportunities, and a host of commerce capabilities.”

Editors Dan "Shoe" Hsu and Demian Linn of Bitmob, Ryan O'Donnell and Matt Chandronai from Area5, John Keefer (recently of Crispy Gamer), Brady Fiechter (former EIC of Play Magazine) will be returning, as will some former EGM personalities such as “Seanbaby” and Quartermann.

Here’s the skinny from EGMnow.com:

“I know many of you have wanted to subscribe to the new EGM almost from the day it was announced. Believe me, I appreciate your enthusiasm and patience more than you know, but I also wanted to make sure this was done right and didn't want to take anyone's money until we were ready. We're offering two options: 6 print issues and 26 premium digital issues for $14.99 or 12 print issues and 52 digital issues for $24.99. Currently the offer is available only to North American readers but we'll be providing an option for our fans outside the country in the very near future. For those who want this premium EGM experience, including home delivery of the print magazine and access to exclusive digital content in the pages of EGM: The Digital Magazine, just click here.