Topic: A perspective on the issues with amiibo from a toy collector

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First off, I want to say, this is based on insights I've gained from frequenting toy based forums. I don't claim to be an expert, but I've been in these communities for a long time and this is all details I've picked up. I could very well be incorrect about some of these things; this is just something I wanted to put forward based on what I've heard over the years, and thought it could go a long way to explaining some of the issues regarding amiibo's issues with supply.

But as an introduction, I'm primarily a transformers fan as far as toy collecting goes. There are some key differences between action figures and the toys to life model for video games, but it seems that they are likely governed by similar forces, seeing as how there are parallels in how they've been released.

First of all, there's the issue of manufacturing. As far as Transformers go, a production of a single wave of toys is done months in advance; I don't have a hard date but based on what I've heard and observed it can take up to half a year. This doesn't include the design phase, but rather, the process of manufacturing the parts, assembling/painting them, quality control, packaging, and then finally shipment. What's more, this all has to be scheduled with the factory, at which point you run into another factor that affects time tables. Thus, when Nintendo talks about working to improve stock and new runs of figures, they have to contend with all of THIS, and all of this comes AFTER the design period, which includes creating a run of figures for testing and prototype figures as well.

Next we come to the issues of case assortments. Every time product is shipped to a store, it's done in cases, and it comes down to how many cases an individual store orders. In short, they don't have unlimited product, and individual outlets may very well order less of a thing than another. Furthermore, case assortments have a variable mix of certain items and are not evenly spread out. For instance, as a completely hypothetical example, an amiibo assortment could come with four Charizards and one Ness.

The reason for this is dependent upon a variety of factors. Nintendo certainly shares some responsibility in why there are less of certain figures than others. But there's also other factors involved, and again we come to retailers. Transformers fans will be well versed in their frustration at how in the 2009 Revenge of the Fallen line, the toyline was dominated by figures of Bumblebee. The reason for this was twofold; one is that Bumblebee is of course a highly marketable character, and the other is the fact that retailers have an inordinately large amount of influence on what figures they will stock, to the point Hasbro has to confer with them well in advance of PLANNING their lines, not just producing them. And well, when the first movie came out, kids REALLY liked Bumblebee, and so retailers wanted even more of him from the sequel.

Likewise, more obscure characters tend to ship in smaller numbers because they are less attractive to retailers and thus, they end up produced in smaller numbers. Rosalina is an exclusive figure? More than likely most retailers passed on her because they expected this toyline to be stronger with boys and she was yet another princess figure. This isn't a justification for such sexist attitudes, mind you, but it's one the producers of toys rarely have much opportunity to protest against, especially with a line in the first years of its life cycle like Amiibo.

And so you get certain characters in larger numbers. And the sad fact of the matter is, the ones you see on the shelves all the time are selling. Remember a few months ago when Nintendo announced Link was the highest selling Amiibo? And yet, you see Link all of the time. He's essentially a marquee character, as are Mario and the primary cast of his games. Ness? Not so much. Of course, other figures may end up becoming shelfwarmers if they fail to resonate with buyers.

So what does all that add up to in the end? When it comes to underproduced amiibo, Nintendo more than likely has to deal with every single factor mentioned above. You have to find a retailer willing to stock it, then go through all the steps of production over several months, and then ship it. Finally, you come to them actually reaching the stores and... we come to the matter of scalpers. The fact of the matter is, no retail outlet takes any meaningful steps to stop them, because these people buy the figures and they make their money anyway. Then, when the scalpers sell them at inflated costs, they end up turning a profit even if they have unsold figures just because the mark up is so high individually.

Finally, we come to the fact that Amiibo is in its relative infancy. It's been half a year for us, Nintendo and retailers are effectively seeing the effects of things now. Nintendo is certainly a large company, but their pull is nowhere near as strong as Disney and Activision's are at the current stage of their toys to life initiative. The fact is, every new Amiibo they've shown off so far this week has likely been in the works for a good number of months, possibly well before they first wave even hit stores. This whole thing probably takes place on a different time scale that's completely invisible to us.

Not to mention, Nintendo is putting these things out as various iterations of product; whereas Skylanders and Infinity put their stuff out in waves coinciding with the release of single games that define the brand for a year. Effectively, until the line earns more shelf space, Smash Bros., Super Mario series, Animal Crossing, and whatnot all have to compete with each other for room on the pegs. And this is where Nintendo's intent to make these things work across multiple titles and not be bound by the model Infinity and Skylanders are using is coming back to bite them. They could certainly scale back their efforts, but their vision is outstripping what the market is allowing them to do currently. At this point, it becomes not simply a matter of choosing variety or stability, in that this could very well work out for them better in the end and carve out an area of toys to life they are virtually unchecked in... or it could continue like it's going and remain frustrating, forcing them to adapt. There's no way to know.

Anyway, I hope this has been informative for people. Again, I'm by no means an expert, and most of this is guesswork, but I thought it had value to the ongoing discussion. At the very least, I hoped that I could show that while Nintendo could certainly be handling this better, they remain but one half of the overall equation.