How long will this amiibo craze last?

jeffensminger said:

Man...people are going crazy over these. I was looking at the next wave of figures and I had no idea that all the preorders were sold out..what the hell? I never would have thought these would end up being that popular.

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I am pretty sure you can pre-order all Wave 3 from Gamestop still...well except for the retail exclusives which all got gobbled up quite a while ago I'm sure

I've managed to get 1 of each except Pit and have pre-ordered all but the exclusives for wave 3 (really irritated about Ike and Shulk though; I love both those series). I had no idea this would go bananas like it has, or I wouldn't have dilly-dallied like I did with some of the figures. I refuse to pay anything more than retail, so if a Pit never materializes for me, then so be it. Fucking scalpers and flippers...they ruin everything :/
I am happy for Nintendo that this has been a success so far, I was skeptical tbh even though I was sure the dedicated Nintendo fans would show support. I do agree with aoiddr that people will loose interest if they always see the same few characters on shelves everywhere.

How did you get Marth at retail price if you dilly-dallied? I saw one in a store as a day one release before I knew collecting them would get stupid. I thought to myself, "I'll wait for a sale and snatch them all up!" 3 days later, Marth is already extremely rare and over $50 on eBay.

I can probably get Pit and maybe even Little Mac at retail prices if I try long and hard enough. I lucked out with Wit Fit Trainer, getting the last one behind the counter at Toys R Us. Since then, I preorder all my stuff on amazon. I will have to venture out for the store exclusives, though. Canadian retailers aren't doing in-store preorders on them, and I didn't preorder online within the first 2 minutes of listing before they ran out.

I saw these in Gamestop recently and thought they looked pretty neat. I dont even have a Wii U though. If I did I might pick up a Donkey Kong one or ones I am a fan of. I don't really get all the hype.

Renmauzo said:

I do agree with aoiddr that people will loose interest if they always see the same few characters on shelves everywhere.

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I agree, but I'm afraid that is what motivates the limited runs by Nintendo. With the exception of maybe Mario and Link, I think a lot of these figures are going to come and go.

Now people fear that a character they want might not be available, so it is ingrained in us to pre-order it immediately. The uncertainty of any figure being discontinued after 1 or 2 runs is the only way Nintendo can sustain a ton of demand for these things. I've heard that even Fox and Peach may be the next on the chopping block...

I know that if these were easy to find, I probably would not have bought 12 amiibos so far (and have many from wave 3 on pre-order). Like others have said, I probably would have waited for them all to go on sale, or picked them up casually. But given what's happened with wave 1 and 2, I don't feel I have that luxury.

XeroShinobi said:

How did you get Marth at retail price if you dilly-dallied? I saw one in a store as a day one release before I knew collecting them would get stupid. I thought to myself, "I'll wait for a sale and snatch them all up!" 3 days later, Marth is already extremely rare and over $50 on eBay.

I can probably get Pit and maybe even Little Mac at retail prices if I try long and hard enough. I lucked out with Wit Fit Trainer, getting the last one behind the counter at Toys R Us. Since then, I preorder all my stuff on amazon. I will have to venture out for the store exclusives, though. Canadian retailers aren't doing in-store preorders on them, and I didn't preorder online within the first 2 minutes of listing before they ran out.

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I walked into an EB on lunch one afternoon and there was a Marth and Villager sitting on a 4-way. As for Wii Fit Trainer, I saw a number in passing, and one day decided to go for it since I thought "who's going to want Wii Fit Trainer? I might as well pick one up." At the time, I only had Marth, Villager, and Fox (my first Amiibo) other than my wife's Pikachu and son's Yoshi. It was only a few weeks later when I couldn't find a second Villager for my wife that I asked around and found out about the run on these things.

This shit is so weird. Scarcity, I mean. I don't have a single game that uses these anymore, yet today I read that hey, Captain Falcon is getting hard to find and then I catch myself thinking that I should get a Captain Falcon if I can find one tonight.

And I only have two Amiibos, total, it's not like I like them much (Marth and Villager).

The hell?

edit: yes, I know this is exactly what the problem is, and no, I don't really plan on wasting $15 on something I'll literally never use.

jro said:

This shit is so weird. Scarcity, I mean. I don't have a single game that uses these anymore, yet today I read that hey, Captain Falcon is getting hard to find and then I catch myself thinking that I should get a Captain Falcon if I can find one tonight.

And I only have two Amiibos, total, it's not like I like them much (Marth and Villager).

The hell?

edit: yes, I know this is exactly what the problem is, and no, I don't really plan on wasting $15 on something I'll literally never use.

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$20 for your villager plz?

To go with Mario, Link, and Samus I have Zelda in the mail so I can also use it for Hyrule Warriors. Would REALLY love a Little Mac just to see how he plays as he levels up to 50 since he seems to be such a lower character out of the rest of the cast.

From left to right in order of purchase. I like the look of them and the detail in the painting.

Luigi's pose seems much lamer than the rest of them.

T.A.P. said:

Luigi's pose seems much lamer than the rest of them.

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It needed to be Stone Cold Luigi.

So there are some interviews on the internet suggesting that an Animal Crossing game for the Wii U will come out, sooner rather than later...(whatever that means).

But thinking about amiibo functionality in Animal Crossing - the potential is pretty rad. Not sure if Nintendo would go as far as to have amiibos unlock characters like Link or Samus in the game (though that would be awesome), or they could flake out and just do something gimmicky like costumes or props like in Mario Kart.

I decided to venture out the past few days and I did find the newly uncommon Fox and a pair of Captain Falcon figures out in the wild. I have all but given up hope on getting The Holy Trinity but I am willing to trade towards a Little Mac if anyone is interested.

I still say those of us who are interested should come up with some system to help each other get these things because I have found certain ones are only rare to certain areas. Plus come early next month those exclusives are all going ot be a pain in the ass to try and get.

This area is rife with flippers and scalpers so I haven't even bothered trying to track down Pit at this point. I went ahead and saved myself some trouble for Wave 3 and pre-ordered them all from GameStop (the non exclusive ones anyway). I was able to get a Meta Knight pre-order in with Best Buy in the store but Lucario and Rosalina were impossible to order so I imagine I'm going to try my luck on the day of their release and hope for the best. It's safe to say though that I'm not holding my breath expecting to find them.

I know Nintendo is known for this kind of nonsense ever since the NES days with the whole chip shortage shenanigans but unlike then I guess I'm too old to put up with their tactics and have grown increasingly disenfranchised with them as a company. Every store I go into has the same meager selection of Amiibos available and I can't understand why Nintendo thinks that's acceptable to have only the same tired old ones all the time. EVERY store has Mario, Peach, Pikachu, Kirby, Link and Donkey Kong. Boring.

If I didn't get them for 20% off from Best Buy from that GCU promotion, I probably still wouldn't have the ones listed above because I can find them all over without trouble and would just wait for stores to get tired of sitting on their money and put them on sale.

Hikaru Ichijyo said:

This area is rife with flippers and scalpers so I haven't even bothered trying to track down Pit at this point. I went ahead and saved myself some trouble for Wave 3 and pre-ordered them all from GameStop (the non exclusive ones anyway). I was able to get a Meta Knight pre-order in with Best Buy in the store but Lucario and Rosalina were impossible to order so I imagine I'm going to try my luck on the day of their release and hope for the best. It's safe to say though that I'm not holding my breath expecting to find them.

I know Nintendo is known for this kind of nonsense ever since the NES days with the whole chip shortage shenanigans but unlike then I guess I'm too old to put up with their tactics and have grown increasingly disenfranchised with them as a company. Every store I go into has the same meager selection of Amiibos available and I can't understand why Nintendo thinks that's acceptable to have only the same tired old ones all the time. EVERY store has Mario, Peach, Pikachu, Kirby, Link and Donkey Kong. Boring.

If I didn't get them for 20% off from Best Buy from that GCU promotion, I probably still wouldn't have the ones listed above because I can find them all over without trouble and would just wait for stores to get tired of sitting on their money and put them on sale.

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You ask why they are keeping them scarce and then admit that you wouldn't be buying the common ones anyway because they're common. They also got you to pre-order because you don't want to miss out on future releases. If you were as "disenfranchised" as you say you are, then you wouldn't be checking all over town for rare toys.

It's had the opposite effect on me. I picked up Mario when I first saw them and planned to slowly buy them all one at a time. Now that I know there are certain ones I won't be able to buy at retail price I have decided not to bother at all. I didn't want them because they're rare, I just thought they were pretty cool, so all this hassle has completely put me off.

I'm sure they see as clearly as we do the craze and hype and its effects. It's happened before (wii), and there were scalpers then. Once the craze starts dying down, I'm sure we'll see more of the more uncommon toys.

However, if they start making them into cards like I read before, that's where I'm going to feel the most upset. The novelty of having SSB statues is what I enjoy most, and that will be gone if they went with cards.

Got a Diddy Kong yesterday since I liked the way it looked but damn GS changed my pre-order from Shulk to Toon Link which is cool with me since I like his character in the game. No true desire to get them all, pretty much just the ones that I like how they look. Might be dumb but I like how Kirby looks and plan on getting him at some point. My wish ones would be Pac-Man, Mr Game & Watch, and Duck Hunt

lithy said:

You ask why they are keeping them scarce and then admit that you wouldn't be buying the common ones anyway because they're common.

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When these first came out, I made the incorrect assumption that these would be like their supposed competition, the Skylanders and Infinity toys. The perception at the time was that they'd be compatible with the upcoming SSB game and then potentially more titles down the line. Of course when SSB came out, that functionality wasn't really there and it's hard to say what else they'll do with these things other than being semi functional novelties. That might have been their plan all along though.

More to that point, because I assumed that they would be like Skylanders and Infinity, I also assumed that every store would have ample stock of the whole line of figures, not just their most visible characters. I can't speak for Skylanders as I've never had an interest in that line but as far as Infinity goes, every store I've been in has had most all of the entire lineup available for purchase. If a figure wasn't present at that store I just assumed that it was popular and they were out of stock on it because I would go to another store down the street and they'd have a whole row of that figure I didn't see in the previous store.

As for the common/not common thing...even if they DID release their product like their competition I would still go for the B and C level characters first because up till now I've been inundated with merchandise for Mario, Link and the like whereas getting anything Fire Emblem or Animal Crossing seems like a chore since Nintendo treats Mario like DC treats Batman as in everything else is secondary to their sacred cash cow. I always jumped on a new Fire Emblem or Animal Crossing release not because it could be rare at some point but because it WASN'T another Mario or Zelda game.

lithy said:

They also got you to pre-order because you don't want to miss out on future releases. If you were as "disenfranchised" as you say you are, then you wouldn't be checking all over town for rare toys.

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I don't see where I said anything about "checking all over town" as you implied. I live in a huge suburban area that has just about every major store you can think of on one street (in some cases there's actually two locations). When I think of checking all over town, that to me implies driving to several locations of the same business in different areas along the interstate. That's not to say I haven't done that in the past but by and large I usually don't have to because of the cluster of stores all in one spot and the chances of them having what I want is pretty good.

As for pre-ordering, I had every intention of picking up the entire line at some point but again I incorrectly assumed they would be widespread and readily available. I assumed wrong and it bit me in the ass once the frenzy set in so I missed out on picking up Marth, Villager, and Wii Fit Trainer as well as Pit and probably Lucario and Rosalina. I decided to go ahead and pre-order because I didn't want to have to fight with the scalpers/flippers over something that SHOULD be readily available for sale and replenishment.

As for being disenfranchised, maybe that's the wrong word? Perhaps disheartened might be more appropriate? Help me out here without the dismissive tone if possible. I am a fan of Nintendo but I'm not pleased that they continue to use this tactic over and over again as I don't see what purpose it really serves other than a minor boost on their quarterly return (and the reasoning may just be as simple as that).

ggallegos1 said:

I'm sure they see as clearly as we do the craze and hype and its effects. It's happened before (wii), and there were scalpers then. Once the craze starts dying down, I'm sure we'll see more of the more uncommon toys.

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I'm hesitant to compare the Wii craze to this because in my mind, Nintendo had every intention of selling as many Wii units as it could and I have to imagine the hype over those actually did far exceed their ability to manufacture the units so there was a genuine shortage of systems. The difference with these is retailers have tried to replenish their sold thru stock and finding that they cannot.

ggallegos1 said:

However, if they start making them into cards like I read before, that's where I'm going to feel the most upset. The novelty of having SSB statues is what I enjoy most, and that will be gone if they went with cards.

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The simplest and smartest thing to do is green light another production run. These things are put on display right next to the Infinity and Skylanders so there's the obvious marketing angle that these are not only novelties but interactive toys for video games. Sure the cards could function the same but they lack the novelty appeal of the figurines. Surely Nintendo has the empirical data by now that tells them how many they need to manufacture and still turn a profit.

Today I pre-ordered Megaman and Bowser. I wanted Shulk, but it seems like he is USA Gamestop Exclusive

Azra113 said:

Today I pre-ordered Megaman and Bowser. I wanted Shulk, but it seems like he is USA Gamestop Exclusive

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It's coming to Canada as well, it's just that pre-orders only lasted for a couple of hours.

Pope Sazae said:

Got a Diddy Kong yesterday since I liked the way it looked but damn GS changed my pre-order from Shulk to Toon Link which is cool with me since I like his character in the game. No true desire to get them all, pretty much just the ones that I like how they look. Might be dumb but I like how Kirby looks and plan on getting him at some point. My wish ones would be Pac-Man, Mr Game & Watch, and Duck Hunt

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I was surprised at no Ness. Anything Earthbound sells out in about 8 seconds.

From Reddit AMA with Nintendo, commented by destructoid.

According to the Nintendo rep, the discontinued amiibo will operate similar to the "Disney Vault," where they will come back later. This semi-contradicts statements made in the past, so we'll see what happens.

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I am sure this angers and appeases people at the same time. I am not sure how much I believe this though.

It might not be too far fetched...I mean, lets take Fox, right? People are saying he is one of the next to be cancelled...but Star Fox U is going to be one of Nintendo's big games for 2015? I would assume it would have some kind of amiibo functionality...why would they not offer him again in the future when that game gets released?

Same goes for Marth and the Villager...we already know the Wii U is getting a Fire Emblem X Xenoblade game. And its all but been confirmed that there will be a Wii U Animal Crossing...

Perhaps Nintendo will release different versions/poses of these characters - but it would seem dumb to shut the door on them completely if they have future Wii U (or even 3DS) releases. Also, I read last night (too lazy to find it) that store exclusive figures like Shulk etc may be timed exclusives - which would certainly be nice.