
Nintendo's range of amiibo figures has proven to be incredibly popular — perhaps more so than the company ever expected. Figures are selling briskly in both North America and Europe, and in the UK in particular it's not uncommon to see empty stands in leading high street retailers, while stock of rival "toys to life" brands Skylanders and Disney Infinity remains plentiful.
UK retailer GAME has obviously spotted the high demand and decided to cash in by bumping the price of each figure up by £3. At launch, the chain was charging £11.99 for amiibo figures — already £1.99 higher than both Amazon and Asda were asking — but recently we've had reports from readers that the price had risen to £14.99.


Keen to see if this was merely an isolated incident, we travelled to our local GAME brand — Loughborough — and discovered that the amiibo toys there were also being sold for more than they had been previously. In fact, only four days ago we'd visited the store and picked up a Pikachu figure for £11.99, yet the Animal Crossing Villager we purchased today cost us £3 more:

Ironically, on a stand directly opposite the almost-empty amiibo selection, Disney Infinity toys were being discounted to just £9.99.
GAME is perfectly entitled to hike prices on Nintendo stock as Nintendo itself doesn't impose recommended retail prices on sellers. However, it does seem a little underhanded to push the price up so soon after launch when it's clear that people are struggling to locate the figures they want.
That's supply and demand for you, we guess.
Comments 81
And there were those that doubted their success!
Daylight robbery. If this is to pay for that 'Christmas Shopper Simulator' they made, then eton mess is going to hit the fan.
LOL and I've read good things about GAME from this site from UK NLifers.
Well, at least amiibo sales are doing well enough for game to do this.
Still can't find the Marth amiibo :U
If Game is like the Funcoland of old and now Gamestop then they base prices off of demand like always. I can't fault them but I would also ask myself do I really need it from them or can I wait till someone else gets it at a better price.
Toys'r'us where also selling the villager figure for £2 more than all the other Amiibo too. Not sure why as he's clearly not an exclusive like I first thought he may have been.
Why don't people just buy them from nintendo.co.uk??? That's good news about the demand for them though
The 3 pounds is an un-chucky service fee. I'd consider it cheap.
3 extra quid!? Outrageous.
@DESS-M-8 I just had a look at the Nintendo store and Yoshi,Kirby and Villager are all sold out there too,crazy
Aww I thought Shy Guy had a Amiibo now! (I want one!)
@DESS-M-8 Because they are horrible at delivery unless you add £4...
I was in Game today in Belfast and spotted the £14.99 price tag, went online and found most Amiibos sold out on Amazon or trading for up to £30 second hand
This is great news for Nintendo! It's like the Wii all over again
Well.. In Eu they already were 15 or 16.. so yeah..
Fantastic news that Amiibo is selling well, hopefully this will give the Wii U some exposure and boost sales.
Not all stores are greedy and trying to cash in. Argos, which are normally expensive for games, still have them up at £10.99.
@SheldonRandoms - try Argos, they still have them up for sale on-line.
A nice reminder that NoE doesn't set prices on hardware or software for those people who are always calling for a discount.
Seeing that all the Kaos traps for Skylanders sold out of GAME before the shop opened, then subsequently appeared at £80 online, I don't find this surprising. This business disappoints from every level from staff to management to ownership. Smyths and Amazon are the best places to shop for games in the UK.
i dont understand why these are so popular to be honest. but i dont have a wiiU so maybe i dont know all of what amiibo can do
Actually picked up 2 yesterday in TRU in the US for the boys despite them not asking for them when everybody they're related to keeps asking them what they want. TRU usually charges $1 more than everybody else, $13.99 vs $12.99, but I got suckered in by the spend $35 get $10 off so 2 amiibo and a Skylander cost about $10 each, or the Skylander was free depending on how you look at it. (also go t2 free Trap Team keys w/ Hex SKylanders, TRU also charges $1 each more for the keys - $6.99 vs $5.99 - but that just mena tIsaved $14 w/ an $11 Skylander purchase.
1 thing that did stand out in TRU - 1/2 of a back corner had amiibo, Skylanders had a big corner near the front door and another whole aisle, Disney Infinity had a huge front wall and another aisle. I'm guessing Disney is paying them for floor space.
I bought Link and Starfox even though my kids always play w/ Kirby and Yoshi in SSB b/c Kirby and Yoshi look more like Happy Meal toys, Link and Starfox look good. And HW support for Link which my son is playing. The store was out of Villager - a group of teenage boys were looking for it - and Wii Fii trainer. There were about a dozen each of Peach, Mario, DK, Samus, Kirby, Yoshi, but only 2 Starfox and 4 or 5 Link.
Anybody looking for Captain Toad - TRU is having a 2 day sale Friday and Saturday - Buy 1 Wii U game get 1 40% off.
Was in Game this morning. They've upped the price of the Smash Bros Gamecube controller to £39.99!
@Nintendoyle - Of course that doesn't matter too much since nobody can find the adapter to plug them into. Which really makes the lack of available adapters even more of a misstep.
@SheldonRandoms I cant speak for most locations, but here in the US, it seems like there's no availability for Marth amiibos online (unless you paid 3x the price) or in the immediate VA/D.C./MD area of about a 50-100 mile radius. I was lucky enough to find what I assume were the last two available at a Target and bought both of them only because of how much trouble it was to get to the store (farther than expected and super deep into the city).
Basically, if you're a fan of the "less popular" amiibos or are a collector, dont risk waiting around because Nintendo might restock it if you dont have to.
@DiscoGentleman - Or everybody is just buying amiibo as collectibles, or to sell them on eBay, or to play w/ on their 3DS next year.
I'ld like to be optimistic and say this will help Wii U sales, but I don't see it unless Wii U get an amiibo like Skylander game, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, Nintendo Land 2, something that needs the Wii U. amiibo w/ the Wii U don't do much more than they do w/o it unfortunately.
Really? They're doing awesome? At my local toy shops, they don't seem to sell at all. Not only that, but they barely have any. Just Mario, Peach, Pikachu and Yoshi, and maybe one Samus or Fox. No Villager, no Marth, no Wii Fit Trainer, nothing. Come on Intertoys! Get your amiibo in stock!
@Nintendoyle That's....horrible. I received my Smash Gamecube controller this morning (I got my copy of the game and Gamecube adaptor last week) from shopto.net....they priced one of their preorder options wrong a while back so I got a copy of the game and Gamecube controller for just over £50.....they quickly removed the option from their site after I preordered it, but they honoured their their preorders. I'm giving the other copy of the game to my nephew for Xmas (I was going to buy it for him anyway) so I've effectively gotten the controller dirt cheap
No way I'd have paid £40 for it by itself
Oh wow that's pretty disgusting. I can't imagine how awful it'd be if retailers made low-stock in demand games higher prices too.
Wow that sucks. I didn't think they could do that. And just for that I'm canceling my preorder of MM. Anybody know another UK retailer that ships to the US?
@Poketendo Apparently MediaMarkt is also raising the prices of amiibo, they must be selling. Some like Samus, Link and Fox are €20,94 now, a few others are €17,94.
@SheldonRandoms He can be got on eBay for £15.99 free postage - eBay item number: 121468683343 well he can at the moment
Typical Game tactics, was so happy when these scumbags went out of business. Unfortunately they were saved and haven't learned a thing, can't wait for it to happen again!!!
Save yourself some cash and go Argos!
Any two amiibo for £21 at Argos, pretty good deal and plenty of stock available.
@rjejr
I've been thinking about Animal Crossing for Wii-U too. It seems the perfect game for Amiibo, more than any other of Nintendo's properties. There are lots of possibilities there for unlocking extra town residents, themed furniture, themed clothes....etc.
I also agree that a "sandbox game" like Disney Infinity for Amiibo seems like a no-brainer that would be a huge success for Nintendo. But so would a Pokémon MMO that we've all been clamoring for over the years. So who knows? Maybe Nintendo will surprise us!
Saw this yesterday, glad I got my haul when it was £11.99.
The best place is Argos as they're £10.99, and also Sainsburys.
"Only" 14.99...
This is exactly what I hate to keep seeing in games' stores, a thing is the freedom to put the price you want, another is try to trick the consumer in thinking that inflated price is an offer >.<#
MediaMarkt in the Netherlands has a "buy two, get one free" promotion for all figures, games, DVD's etc. They sell amiibo's for 12,99 euro so you get three for 26 euro.
GAME are scumbags, they wil rip off the same customers they ridiculed for buying Nintendo off them in the first place. They have a big poster in the window of the Hull game store saying 50%off many top games on all platforms, followed by a pic of the new Lego batman game cover on all current coconsos except Wii u! I asked the guy (tbh a was being a bit petty as I knew the answer) if the offer applied to Wii u aswell.........He laughed in my face and told me 'we don't bother with stuff that isn't current and popular'!! a little blunt and harsh maybe , but especially hard to take when your stood next to a cleaned out amiibo stand with inflated price tags due to high sales!! I go to Grainger games for my stuff.
Well, as a result of this article (and luckily I've got the savings to do it), I've bought some more from nintendo.co.uk for £10.99 each....Peach, Samus, Fox, Wii Fit Trainer and Pikachu to go with the Mario, Donkey Kong, Marth, and Link I've already got. I've had no problems with delivery from nintendo.co.uk before, bought quite a bit of stuff from them.
I managed to get a back order in for Yoshi as well last week, although now I'm a bit dubious as to whether I'll get that or not. I'm going to eventually buy these things anyway, I just want to pay RRP for them, not GAME's inflated prices. The problem is, because they're doing this, everybody else will put their prices up too. Supply and demand is one thing, but GAME being the biggest videogame retailer on the high street doing this is going to create headaches.
Not only are they a great form of DLC...uh...PSC? (PhySical Content? I dunno...), they look pretty on a shelf!
Not surprised by these news.
Everyone who shops at Game is part of the problem (myself included) so I am determined to try other retailers, vote with your wallets people.
I haven't even seen any Amiibos in my GAME! Or Tesco's for that matter!
Amiibo are 15.99 over here...thats 19 dollars! ...while the US has them for 12.99...
I've bought 4 and pre-ordered another 7 and thats it...I am not going to bother with collecting them all or anything...not at 15.99 a pop.
At 12.99 I would've bought the while first wave...but at a total of 29 amiibo at the end of february....nah, not for me! I'd rather buy myself a new Wii U and/or a Lego Star Wars Death Star and M. Falcon.
@DESS-M-8 told you they were moving! but at this point, I am starting to believe they purposely (like the Gamecube Adapters) underproduced to see what demand was... Unfortunately, Nintendo is not known for reprinting much if anything I did want my own collection, we will see what happens for x-mas.
GAME are experts in ripping off gamers, earlier this month they tried charging me an extra £5 for a "free" minifigure with Lego Batman 3. I only went there to spend 2000 "goodwill" points after complaining that I'd been ripped off on a previous visit to the Brighton store.
ToysRUs (UK) are still selling Amiibos for £10.89 - you can click & collect to check stock & reserve a figure before going in.
GAME sold me a faulty pre-owned Wii Classic Controller once. Disgusting.
@SanderEvers Yep, something I've mentioned on here many times, but it doesn't stop people blaming Nintendo!
Just checking Amazon now, and all the released figures cost more than when I bought them from there. A lot of it seems to be 3rd party sellers cashing in on the demand where Amazon can't stock them. Some are selling for as much as £30! I'm definitely pre-ordering all of the ones I intend to buy as and when they become available.
Also, looking at the figures released in January, they're £3 more on Amazon.co.uk and the ones released this month.
Everywhere that has them in stock seems to have jacked up the price, not just GAME. Sure, Shopto sell them at the original price, but they all seem to be on back order
Folks, it's not that the amiibo are hugely successful, it's that there's limited stock. And GAME being greedy C U Next Tuesdays are extorting people.
@DTFaux you bought 2 Marth's?! I can't find one
Glad I got Samus on launch day.
I'm glad I don't buy anything at GAME. I bought a DS game once from them at full price, apparently "new", only to get home and find save game files on it already used! They refused to believe me and even sent me a rude email denying it! I've not been back since and that was about 8 or so years ago now!
I've spent so much money on gaming since then and they've not had a penny of it. You lost out in the end GAME, not me!
Today I've got my Mario figure in my local italian Gamestop, they are €.15 as usual.
Kirby is selling like hot cakes here, can't find him!
@datamonkey I've had nearly that exact same experience, and it also put me off shopping at GAME. Back when Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga first came out on GBA, I bought what I thought was a brand new copy from GAME which I paid full price for, got home and there was an existing save file on it for about 24 hours gameplay! I took it back the next morning (less than 24 hours later,from the time showing on my receipt so they couldn't accuse me of playing it) and the excuse they came up with was 'It came from the factory like that' (!) So I asked if I could have one that didn't come from the factory like that and made them replace it, then stood and tested it on my GBA in front of them to make sure.
They're a pathetic company, I can't understand how they've managed to stay in business, let alone remain the biggest videogame retailer on the high street.
@ToxieDogg Unfortunately a lot of high street shoppers are sheep and flock to it simply because there aren't any other shops that stock games and gaming merchandise to the extent they do, and the other shops that do aren't as widespread as GAME (Grainger) or get bought out by GAME. (GameStation) Doesn't help that HMV, Tesco's and Asda's games sections have gone down the toilet recently.
Still selling at retail in the states, most characters are still available. They are robbing you over there!
They are still selling the next set that are on Pre-Order for £10-99 Online, However the set just released have all gone up. I couldn't afford to buy all the first set so that's annoying - especially as so many of then are showing out of stock and eBay have sellers selling certain figures at £50+. Showing that people have bough maybe ten at a time and selling the rest at inflated prices.
@OorWullie It's been like that for days. I've been trying to get a Kirby since Tuesday.
I went to my local GAME today and the GC controller was £39.99 compared with £24.99 when I got it last Friday. Apparently they're getting restocks of the GC adapter bundle soon too.
@ToxieDogg Wow sorry to hear that happened to you also but well done on getting it back to them in under 24 hours to prove yourself correct!
Their excuse that it came from the factory in that condition is hilarious/terrible! I used to wonder why they unwrapped the games to keep in the drawer rather than keeping them factory sealed. Now we know it seems all the staff used to like playing the games first before they were sold! lol
What do you expect from the Uk's worst game retailer!
@ToxieDogg Yep and that is why Gamestop wont let employees check out new handheld games. Came from the factory like that...lol.
I barely had any interest in buying one, now I don't think I'll be buying any.
@shigulicious I likely wouldnt have gotten the second one on the spot if I didnt go through so much trouble trying to even find the first one, honestly. It really was a ways to get there...
The only thing I can suggest is to check the local availability listing on the sites of your big chain stores. I called Target stores that said "Limited Availability" on their site and finally lucked out by the second or 3rd store.
I spotted an adapter bundle with Super Smash Bros brand new for £39.99 in GAME and I bought my bundle online for £47 and believe me inside I was raging.
I noticed that today, kinda messed up how they're doing this. May as well pay for them online like all my other games.
Prices are still the same here in Canada
Has anyone, in any region, managed to "collect 'em all" yet?
@Ryu_Niiyama That is honestly what the guy behind the counter said My (now ex) girlfriend was with me at the time and we were both trying really hard not to laugh because it just seemed so ridiculous that a store clerk could blatantly lie to a customer like that and keep a straight face. At least I got a replacement though, I feel bad for @datamonkey getting screwed over. They are an awful store with an awful reputation for the most part, there are a couple of decent branches about though.
I actually hate GAME they are awful retailers
Hope someone from Game is reading this!
In Canada I see dozens and dozens in every store I see that sells games, so I guess they're not too popular here.
This is why I never shop at GAME, and neither should any gamer with any sense. Supermarkets, the internet and lesser known game stores are where you should spend your money. GAME charge £49.99 for every new Wii U game! No wonder they almost went out of business.
Tell me you didn't see this coming a mile away. I think it will get worse especially limited edition releases. I don't plan to pick these up. They are going to sell a ton of them. We will see if supply gets short the price jump. Just sit back and enjoy the show.
@ToxieDogg sounds like GAME is very dishonest. I stopped buying opened and Re-Shrinked packaged games a longtime ago at GameStop. They would pull the same story that the game came in that way about 10 years ago. Its been a quite a longtime since they tried selling me an obviously opened game as new. I still buy at GameStop I would say I've been very happy buying there for the past few years. Really they are the only dedicated gaming store here in Las Vegas. I think they have gotten better.
I managed to get one of each for $8.50 apiece at toys r us the day they where released I started to only buy a couple of them but because of the sale I got one of each so glad I did now .
@Thats-what-shy I managed to get 11 out of 12 of the first wave of Amiibos for the release date (28/11/2014) at my local GAME store and my friend is getting me a Link Amiibo for christmas. They were all £11.99 when I bought them.
-Mario Amiibo
-Fox Amiibo
-Samus Amiibo
-Peach Amiibo
-Pikachu Amiibo
-Kirby Amiibo
-Wii Fit Trainer Amiibo
-Yoshi Amiibo
-Donkey Kong Amiibo
-Marth Amiibo
-Villager Amiibo
Retailers hiking prices like this is just wrong. I realize this is in the UK, but here in the states the racks are pretty full at most places I see these, including the more desirable ones. They practically were begging me to buy one when I picked up Captain Toad at Gamestop. Well, they practically beg you to buy about a dozen things at the checkout anymore...
@rdrunner1178 - Poekmon MMO
I don't play MMOs, just w/ my wife and kids, but here' my thoughts from an hour ago on a Pokemon amiibo game:
And if they ever decide to make a Wii U Pokemon game were amiibo are necessary to own it will print money. 1st Wave 18 starter Pokemon, 2nd wave 18 popular Pokemon 3rd Wave 18 Legendaries. That's 54, which is what Skylanders has had for each of its 4 games so it's manageable but could still feel like a Pokemon game. I want it to play like Subspace Emissary or Pokepark, my wife wants an RPG like the core games, w/ a vs mode where you fight vs a 3DS owner w/ the amiibo portal. Yes, we think about this stuff too much. Sometimes more than Nitnedo does.
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