Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer remains a bit of an oddity, at least in the opinion of this writer. It appears to be a rather simplistic game in which you decorate homes to satisfy cute characters, adopting one small part of AC charm into one package. It's also a vehicle for the first range of amiibo cards, which will be used to unlock more characters. Vague recent comments from series co-director Hisashi Nogami have also led some to believe that it's just one part of a broader plan that could involve Animal Crossing on Wii U.

Happy Home Designer, for its part, is certainly going to have a big push in Japan. During today's Nintendo Direct it was confirmed that there'll be a number of key releases for the game and its amiibo cards on 30th July, pictured below. These details also confirm it'll be a budget retail release, and will be tied in with the NFC 3DS portal that'll bring amiibo support to the original range of hardware.

AC Happy Home

So, in summary.

  • Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer plus amiibo cards - 4000 Yen (approx $32)
  • Amiibo card packs - 300 Yen (about $2.40)
  • Standalone 3DS amiibo portal - 2500 Yen (about $20)
  • Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer plus 3DS amiibo portal plus amiibo cards - 5000 Yen (about $40)
  • Limited edition New Nintendo 3DS LL (XL) with Happy Home Designer pre-installed - 22000 Yen (about $177)
  • Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer New Nintendo 3DS cover plate (Kisekae) set - 2000 Yen (about $16)

This is clearly being treated as a key release in Japan, and we'll perhaps learn about equivalent plans for the West during E3.

Are you excited about this, or still on the fence?