Rumour: GameStop No Longer Taking amiibo Preorders, Limiting Sales To One Figure Per Person

Can't blame them. This past Friday as far as I know each store only got one Ness! That's horrible.

Poor scalpers, however will they make a bit of pocket change now?

While I can't confirm this for Gamestop, I remember an employee at EB Games talking about no longer taking pre-orders for amiibo from now on.

Well, looks like I won't be getting any more amiibo then! Freaking nintendo, and freaking scalpers!

I heard that the plot of Fast & Furious 8 will involve Dom and the team planning a high-stakes amiibo heist.

Scalpers will still find a way I am sure. They will merely use multiple addresses such as those belonging to friends and family with each order.

@LavaTwilight Same here. If they have such a big problem getting those figures out in a controlled manner, strike a deal with a shipping company and open up an Amiibo online store.
Sure, prices may go up a little, but as long as i dont have to pay 80+ bucks for a figure, im perfectly fine.

1 Missed opportunity = millions of frustrated customers

its not that hard: JUST MAKE MORE

And most, if not all of this mess could be avoided if NoA didn't come up with the rampant stagnant rhinoceros of store-exclusive amiibos. Didn't they see this coming?

Looks like many more lorry hijacks will happen because of this move. Now lets imagine how the US would react if these hijacks happened but with Gamestop putting amiibo and Black Ops 3 in the same lorry...

I think it's good that Gamestop is taking this stance but this problem lies on Nintendo.

I don't understand why Nintendo doesn't sell amiibos on through their own online store???

Not surprised that GameStop is taking this stance after the nightmare of their in-store systems crashing last time a wave was out for preordering.

One Amiibo figure per costumer should have been there from the start. All stores should do this.

Disabling pre-orders sounds like a really bad idea.

Makes sense, Nintendo won't send them enough to really make pre-orders worth it or fill them all. This way they can't get people whining at them for their pre-order being cancelled.

It is so simple for me. When I go to the store and I happen to walk down the isle with the amiibos in it, and I see one I want I buy it.

I will not jump through any hoops and I will never never never ever pay more than MSRP. If Nintendo doesn't want to sell me one, then I guess I don't get one.

Going to laugh if this is true. Although the one figure per person thing sucks. it should be one figure type so those that are trying to get the whole set don't have to go in and leave and go back in.

EDIT: Apparently I need to stay off the internet when tired. Misread the article.

I pre-ordered pac-man which was my first amiibo and probably my last. This is being handled so poorly that it's taking all of the fun out of it. What bugs me the most is that stores are selling these for more money now as well. The EB by my house were selling the new wave for $15.99 for some reason. So are even the stores gouging the customers? Again so many small problems leading to my perspective that Amiibos are not fun anymore and I have no time for the drama.

@Tsurii897
Hind sight is 20/20 plus given that everything at a corporate level is glacial for obvious reasons and that they had to overhaul their systems. This actually would be around the time something like this would be put into effect. No one thought Amiibo would get this crazily out of hand from the beginning nor that consumers would pay such asinine prices for them rather than refusing to pay more than the MSRP thus continuing to encourage scalpers to buy them up for greater profit. Big thing is I'm glad that they are actually doing something about it. Now if Nintendo would start restocking appropriately along with this we'll get somewhere.

Scalpers are horrible. I feel really bad for the people who only want one of each but can't get them because someone already bought all of them. Scalpers seriously have too much time on their hands and need to find a new hobby. I haven't bought an amiibo yet but am thinking about getting Zelda just for the extra content I can get in certain games.

Our GameStop did this on May 29th; it made it really easy to get a silver Mario Amiibo so I think it will work.

When I was picking up my splatoon pre-order, I was talking to the guy working there (who is the manager for that store) and he told me that they had to refund alot of the wave 4 pre orders and that he was told that they are no longer taking pre orders on amiibo because nintendo isn't giving them enough supply for the demand. As for the one per customer, he also said that as well, you can only buy one type of figurine per customer,even if you come in with your kids and they both want the same figure, they won't sell you 2 of the same. I found this all out from asking him about the splatoon amiibo 3-pack, which seemingly they only received 1 of them for the store, even the other ebgames in the same city (yes, my lil city has two stores. ..) only got 1 of them as well. Nintendo really needs to get their act together and make more amiibo figures for the demand!

@Mrclaycoat no, it's because the Canadian dollar is garbage right now, that's why the prices have gone up. That's also why splatoon is $70 instead of $60, and most ps4/ xbox one games are going from $70 to $80.

I'm glad. Now I can get store exclusives without crashing any websites.

Love the sound of that. Wish more places would do that as well if it's true. One thing about pre-orders is you can do it at different retail stores and online sites. So even if a store/site have 1 per customer, it doesn't mean they can't do it at another store/site when pre-orders becomes available to have more. Scalpers know what we know and than some making them smarter and more driven, at least this will makes it harder for them.

One of my friends tried to buy two of the same Amiibo at a EB Games store (same as Gamestop but in Canada) and they told him he couldn't. "Only one per costumer" they said. And that happened two months ago. So I can confirm at least one EB Games already do that. As for the preorders, I don't know.

@dkxcalibur They do in the UK, but the situation is just as hopeless. They sell out in minutes! They also sell them at the RRP, unlike many other retailers.

@hYdeks Yup that actually makes total sense, thanks

It's about damn time! It only took 4 waves and 9 months for them to realize people are reselling them.

Guess they didn't want to repeat the incident with wave 4. Sort of good but i think they cut the chances of me getting future amiibo that i want.

Great for online, not so much in-store. EB Games/Gamestop has always had laughable Amiibo stock at store level so going to them without a pre-order is a waste of your time. If you're going to hit a retail outlet TRU is the best bet because they have significantly larger stock and organize their line queues better.

@Rcmadiax... I guess I misread...running on three hours sleep so its bound to happen. Thanks though!

Scalpers are absolute scum though forcing this situation in the first place.

@Spoony_Tech the only Ness at my store went to a 7-10 year old. it was great seeing as a rare amiibo to go to a little kid who just wanted their favorite character. on the down side my store didn't get any Lucina or Robin at all. I was a tad disappointed.

@Spoony_Tech

"Can't blame them. This past Friday as far as I know each store only got one Ness! That's horrible."

I made the terrible mistake of going to GameStop when they opened on Friday. All they got was 6 Silver Marios, 8 Pac-Man, 4 of each boy and girl Splatoon characters, 1 pack of 3- Splatoon, and 1 Wario.

They got none of the others. Again, all the preorders took all the extra stock, just like wave 3, except it was worse.

Going to GameStop, ruined my chances of maybe getting the others at Target, Best Buy, etc. The employees told me they were gone in seconds.

@RCMADIAX @Ryu_Niiyama - Can't fault the guy for the mistake. I was at Target Friday morning to pick up Spaltoon and saw all the wave 4 amiibo on the counter. A manager was there and he was only allowing 2 per customer. I knwo 2 is more than 1, but when there are 5 or 6 different amiibo and you can only buy 2 it's still a limitation. A woman in front of me picked up the Spaltoon 3 pack, Wario and Silver Mario and the manager quickly said to her "You can only buy 2". We all kind of joked about it as she put silver Mario down and bought the Splatoon game, Wario and the 3 pack. Then she compalined when her pre-order $5 GC wouldn't work. I told the cashier she had to scan the game before the pre-order card and that took care of that.

And scalpers may be scum - I don't know any personally - but the amiibo shortage is caused by Nintedo trying to keep their stock price up, they purposefully aren't making enough. Scalpers aren't at fault when a store is only getting 3 or 4 Lucina or Ness figures. When stores get 50 or 100 of each and then sell out, then I'll blame scalpers. Spaltoon is a HUGE selling game, my Target had about 50 copies of the game but only 5 of the amiibo 3 packs. Scalpers didn't buy them b/c Nintneod didn't make them.

http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/20/new-3ds-xl-amiibos-sold-out/

http://venturebeat.com/2015/05/29/splatoon-sells-out/

I think anyone who frequents the Amiibo Reddit knows how often info like this flows in, then turns out to be wrong. I would take this with a super-grain of salt and I'm really surprised that this of all things was chosen to be reported on here.

I've heard that EB Games is putting in similar no preorders policy.

I can confirm this as well. Called several gamestop stores a few days before Wave 4 came out and they told me that it's actually something Nintendo is making them enforce, to try and be fair with Amiibo stock. Personally I think it's a great idea to limit 1 character per customer; fighting scalpers and whatnot.

Glad to see some change going on with this. It may not be the best solution, but it's a step in the right direction. This will start to stop scalpers from preordering one, then putting the preorder for their preorder on amazon or ebay.

Also I missed the preorder window of wave 4. I talked to an associate the week prior to the release and she said they had already filled in all preorders for wave 4 during the hour they had it open at the store. I hadn't heard anything about this preorder window because they didn't announce it. Glad to hear I can just wait on the release date if I really wanted to get one rather than going in every few days to ask when the window will be.

Okay. This should fix things a little. Still, I can't help but feel that this will make getting the ones I want just a little harder. Kinda wish they did this sooner... I just wanted to get Ness T_T.

Nintendo has its own way of saying, "Stay Hungry My Friend".
Sad part is, it never used to be like this. It's really a game within a game.

@rjejr " Can't fault the guy for the mistake. "

o_0 Were you talking about me? If so I'm female. (If you weren't talking about me see post about being tired above...)

Anyway. As much as I am annoyed about the whole amiibo situation (I'm sure I've complained in a few posts) I don't think that Nintendo was going for artificial shortage. After a point you get lose more customers than you gain if you make it too difficult to buy a product and I think Nintendo is aware of that. I think that if they were trying to really limit stock they wouldn't have shifted out re-runs and moved stock around somewhat quickly. Sure it still isn't enough to meet demand but manufacturing outside of whatever schedule they agreed on originally costs them money.

So I still firmly blame scalpers. Now if we get to holiday (which should be the end of the smash line by then) and I still can't get them at retail then I'll start brandishing the pitchfork.

@Pod D Well if they have enough money to buy 100 of the same figure I'm sure they don't need that pocket change.

I don't understand why the idea of pre-ordering items has failed so miserably. Isn't the entire idea of taking pre-orders to know the minimum number of items you need to make?? Why Nintendo doesn't seem to understand this is beyond me. They should just sell them directly.

They can't do preorders, 'cause they have no idea how few they're getting 'til the shipment arrives. So I waited a couple of hours early outside the store to get dibs on the only Splatoon amiibo three-pack that store got.

Thought about getting Pac-Man. Guess I should before he gets too pricey.

ok

^What i'll be doing the day before, and the day a new amiibo releases. On the bright side, I can eat marshmallows and sing liek a nincompoop to hopefully scare away some scalpers.

I would've liked a Ness amiibo, but alas, they had like 2 of them at one gamestop, and there was a line. So I went to Target early, but there was a line, I was like "fuuuuuuuuuuuuudge is swell!", but I decided to wait. They said "Go to the amiibo section first" which people did, and when they ran out there, they were like "Go to the register here for more amiiboz", and when that guy said that, I was pretty close, and I got some amiibos, including MY WAIFU JIGGLYPUFF! (I said that many times during the waiting of the line). I didn't get a Robin or Lucina amiibo, so I decided to wait outside of Best Buy, and THANK GOODNESS, nobody was there, so I was the first one on line, but the store didn't open for 2 more hours, so I had to wait in the hot, burning sun.........Thankfully, i'm used to the sun, and I had an energy drink and tacobell breakfast, so I was revved up. I then got them both as soon as the store opened, and when I got both Robin and Lucina, they only had 1 of each left, and there was a line behind me, with people wanting them both................

.................And now this process will repeat itself for many waves to come, thanks Nintendo for not making enough, I can now go camping like I always wanted 2 : P

R.I.P. Amiibo now scalpers AND collectors won't be able to get some Amiibo thanks to the only 2 Amiibo total per person rule. Epic FACEPALM

@LavaTwilight
the problem with flooding the market day 1, is that not everyone is sure which will be rare, and which won't be. Scalpers try to take up all stock and pre-order like crazy.

they will risk pre-ording all speculating to be rare. when it is revealed that they're not rare, they will simply return all their pre-orders and many will go unsold.

what nintendo needs to do, is keep releasing them every 2 months or so, so that scalpers can't return product, make it clear that amiibo will be continually restocked as long as there is demand (i.e. until that amiibo stops selling out).

unfortunately, the customers are inpatient or uninformed (the latter of which is where bootleg versions will help). The informed customers are generally impatient and can't wait a month to try to get it. if people just stopped buying from scalpers, scalping would stop. patience is the key

This isn't a rumor it's true. Last week my GS said there wouldn't be pre orders for wave four and only let each person buy one of each figure. They even are handing sheets out that have check off what you brought so they could keep track.

I don't really see how this will help much. Gamestops still only get a couple of any rare amiibo in stock at a time. Scalpers will just grab a buddy or two to help them get around the 1 per customer rule.

When the Ness amiibo came out, my local Gamestop actually hid it behind the counter. They didn't even put it out on the rack. They hid it and made it "request only", as in you could only get it if you knew they had it in stock and specifically asked for it. I missed it because I didn't know this and it really makes me angry. Store exclusive Amiibo should never have been a thing.

@Garushi yea my ebgames did the same thing with the Ness amiibo, only way I got it was because I just happen to see it laying there sideways on their stock shelf. Nintendo is definitely p!$$ing me off about the lack of supply for the demand on amiibo's.

Good. Glad about this policy. Hopefully I'll be able to snatch Dark Pit and Palutena this summer.

I got a Ness because of a fully-paid preorder. If I had to wait for the day, I would have been out of luck. Things need to change, but that's not the way.

Ha! For once Australia get the better end of things! Preorders are still going strong here, as we don't really have a scalping problem.

Good thing I can still preorder the restocks of the other two of the trinity coming in eventually.

The problem is that it doesn't matter if you don't take pre-orders if there are only 2-3 of each figure per store. Characters like Robin, Lucina, and Ness sell out in the first couple minutes after the store opens.

I guess you could say that sonic amibo sold out too fast xddddd

I guess you could say that sonic amibo sold out too fast xddddd

This is all very deliberate and elaborate. The reality is that many of these products are usually sold to a few people. On average one person owns many Amiibos.

Nintendo is deliberately creating headline shortages to maintain interest. Nothing wrong with that, it's good marketing. It's just that Nintendo seems to think that everyone buying their products are kids that cant see what they are doing... then again.

When I picked up Ness on Saturday the girl at the counter said they are not doing preorders anymore. This is EB Games in Canada which is Gamestop.

I'm still waiting for more Rosalina figures, even a redesign for Mario Party 10 would be sufficient... plz?