If you love amiibo, then odds are good you have been hurt by amiibo - or the lack thereof. Those odds seem even higher if you live in North America, where you're lucky to have even laid eyes on certain figures in the wild, let alone purchase them. Some are speculating that a port strike on the west coast of the United States is stagnating delivery routes, but there's no official word that this is the case. Pre-ordering your amiibo early can help, but not in all cases. Sometimes your order is canceled, and other times, if a reported internal memo from GameStop is true, you're going to be waiting quite some time.
The memo, which has appeared on Reddit and has reportedly been verified by Destructoid's Chris Carter, lays out expectations for Wave 3 amiibo, most notably Ike and King Dedede. According to what it states, you will have to have pre-ordered one of these figures quite early if you want to see it soon:
- Customers who pre-ordered Ike through 26 December 2014 should be seeing their orders come in around 25 February. Those who pre-ordered after this date will likely need to wait for a second wave of order fulfillment later in spring. Due to Ike's popularity, a limit of one has now been placed on pre-orders. If you reserved more than one, the extra amount will be refunded or rolled over into another item.
- Customers who pre-ordered King Dedede through 20 December 2014 should expect to get him around 25 February as well. Those who placed their reservations in afterward may not see hide nor hammer of him until summer.
If you pre-ordered Mega Man or Sonic, there at least seems to be a silver lining: orders for these figures are expected to be completely fulfilled in one wave by 25 February.
Have you pre-ordered the Ike or King Dedede from GameStop and been informed of a delay? Let us know below.
[source destructoid.com, via kotaku.com, reddit.com]
Comments 61
I kinda hope this is also the reason for some of the earlier waves' delay. I remember my MLP vinyls got delayed well over a month because of this strike. Here's hoping for a treasure trove of Villagers and Meta Knights!
...Those are the two I'm missing...
@NintyMan I think we all just want to hold hope that there is a massive floating amiibotopia out there on the water. A place for us.
These amiibo's are more trouble than they're actually worth.
No. No no no nooo nooo nooo nooO NOO NOO NOO I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!! I'M GOING TO GO INSANE! THESE AMIIBOS ARE SIPHONING MY SANITY
GAH! I preordered my King Dedede from Gamestop!
I ordered a Shulk from Gamestop, but they say it will ship on May 1. I hope that date is a filler, as I NEED SHULK!!!
Cue the wah-wah music...
I pre-ordered Ike from Gamestop on December 29th and haven't gotten it yet. They originally told me February 1, that came and went. Their website said expected in on February 13, which also came and went. I called them yesterday (the 17th) and they said they are expecting Ike on the 21st, and that they have a shipment coming in Friday the 20th that MIGHT have Ike in it. I guess I'll find out soon.
@Jamester0722 Me too, friend; me too. On Jan. 1, no less.
The Verge seems like they are just now reporting on the port strike (in relation to Nintendo) as well. Though this memo lines up with why I haven't received a call from GameStop yet about my other wave 3s that I was to get sometime between now and Friday and also why I never got my mail order Shulk (though I did get my ship to store order).
'If you love amiibo, then odds are good you have been hurt my amiibo - or the lack thereof.'
Spotted that error.
Sorry to those who preorded from GameStop...
@TeeJay lol
@VeeFlamesNL Thanks for catching that. I always appreciate corrections. : )
All my amiibo shipped so from GameStop so this weekend I should have all of the wave 3 amiibo.
Also I ordered 2 Ike but it seems that they are limiting orders to one per household since I got a notice I'm only getting one.
I hope I can find a SHULK AMIIBO on Saturday GameStop told me if people don't pick it up, there on shelves!!! Wish me luck
I hope I can find a SHULK AMIIBO on Saturday GameStop told me if people don't pick it up, there on shelves!!! Wish me luck
So there is hope for my Sonic yet...
My megaman amiibo just shipped from walmart. Figured I'd toss that out there.
I ordered two Dedede figures. One in early December for myself and another a few weeks later as a birthday present for a friend of mine. The one I ordered first shipped this afternoon, but later in the day I got this message about the other one:
"Due to the high demand of this item, we are experiencing a delay in getting this character in for customers. We expect to receive the King Dedede Amiibo character later this Summer, and you will receive a tracking number when your item becomes available. Please rest assured we are working to obtain additional inventory as quickly as possible. We sincerely apologize for any frustration this issue may cause.
If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to let us know. You can respond to this email, or if you prefer to speak to someone directly you can call 1 (800) 883-8895. Our hours are 8 AM – 10 PM CST Monday – Saturday, or 8 AM to 8 PM CST on Sundays.
Have a wonderful day,
Your friends at GameStop.com"
I've gotten emails from Gamestop about Ike and King Dedede being delayed, luckily no delay emails about Sonic and Mega Man.
LOL. My local electronic store here in Italy broke the street date on some of wave 3.5 (MegaM, Sonic, Shulk, Dedede and MetaK). It's supposed to come out on Friday but I already bought MM and Sonic last tuesday. I'm not interested on Kirby chars so I only need to hunt Shulk tomorrow.
Ordered Shulk from Gamestop, and they said I'd get in May like others have mentioned. Hope it stays that way! Besides Pac-Man, it is one of the only ones I want.
Ordered mega man and sonic from Gamestop.com back in December, gladly they have not been delayed
@midnafanboy
Nah... Ya order and it comes when it comes, no worse off while waiting than if you never ordered.
I've had a good run though- pre ordered every Amiibo to date (except Rosaline- snagged that one for $20 off ebay from Japan) and the only one that hasn't shipped yet is Mega Man, and the Mario Party line of course.
I just want the wave 4 to complete my Smash line (unless they release a final wave for Smash, which they might) but really it comes down to just wanting the Fire Emblem characters for Code Name STEAM, and I'm pretty sure FE14 will use them too.
@NintyMan I'd agree with the shipping issues as an explanation, but there are Amiibo from wave 2 last December that I have yet to see at all.
This is why I had backups to my backups on preorders.
Still waiting on wave 4...
@JaxonH I admire your persistence compadre, I suppose getting all the amiibo is no easy task
@Djreisat Walmart sells and takes preorders of Amiibo? O. o
Yeah. I preordered it online quite some time ago. I actually found Marth and Villager at my local walmart back around thanksgiving.
I noticed some sonic at my local ebgames today. I'm tempted to pick one up tomorrow when I take my 3DS in to get the trade in credit.
@Djreisat I would had liked to know that before! My local Gamestop is next to a Walmart so I been missing out lol.
Never knew about the port strike o.o I was wondering why the amiibo stock around here was so limited!
So there's hope for my Mega Man, I was very lucky with Sonic through Amazon I think it was. Glad I'm just collecting my favorites and not all of them.
@NintyMan I wonder if my Pit preorder from Best Buy that got canceled last year due to no stock reaching the store is sitting out there somewhere on a ship. That would explain that.
These current strikes are a part of the legacy that transportation industry workers have in America, dating back to the 19th century. Goods shipment railroad workers were some of the first workers in America after the Civil War to go on strike due to abysmal pay and/or working conditions. If the people back then hadn't sacrificed their meager livelihoods (and sometimes their lives to corporate hired thugs), we wouldn't have a standard set of labor laws here, e.g. the 40 hour work week for many occupations.
This is also somewhat relevant to the working conditions of game developers, since there are no such rules or organizing of the workers allowed by big publishers in the industry. It's not uncommon to see 10-12 hour days, including weekends, and little or no additional pay over the 8 hour mark. (A well known case in point around these parts, Masahiro Sakurai. He wasn't as prolific as he is now back when he worked on Smash Bros Melee. Allegedly, he volunteered that time and effort, but how are we to know the true story?) Independent developers are a conditional exception, assuming they can land in a good spot.
In any case, I am satisfied with this reasoning for the lack of product shipments, and can only express solidarity for those affected by less than minimum wage working conditions.
Funny, King Dedede, Ike, and Meta Knight got shipped to me from Best Buy today. Glad I went with them, as I've had no problems so far.
Funny, King Dedede, Ike, and Meta Knight got shipped to me from Best Buy today. Glad I went with them, as I've had no problems so far.
@NintyMan More often than not, issues such as this are rarely brought up on gaming sites, and when they are, they are usually met with apathy. The only time to really discuss such issues is during articles like this one.
Why is it no other retailer is having issues getting their Wave 3 ones on time except for Gamestop? Toys R Us, Target, and Best Buy have got theirs last week. The only one I got on time from these jokers is the Shulk one.
Definitely preordering my Robin, Lucina, and Charizard from somebody else next time.
I got Shulk a week ago.
Still waiting for CF.
I pre-ordered Sonic and Meta Knight from Gamestop Italy and they are sending them to me.
Kids, don't do drugs. Being an amiibo collector is hazardous enough. Ugh. The figures play me, NOT the other way around. Sheesh. Yes, I'm one of the guys affected by the GameStop pre-order ordeal. By heck, I never imagined collecting the fighters would be this taxing.
Well...I'm stuck in an unusual situation here. I DID place my preorders before the cut-off date, but my GameStop closed last week and my reservations were all manually transferred to the other store in the mall. So now I wonder if they have my original order date in the system or if I'm going to be screwed due to no fault of my own.
It's a bit strange reading this, I thought this was talking about Wave 4 initially. I already picked up the full set of Wave 3 from my local department store a month ago. For some reason Nintendo released Wave 3 early in Australia. One of our rare lucky breaks I guess.
@Sir_JBizzle Such an underrated show!
You gotta be kidding me. Looked at my Gamestop receipt and I placed my Dedede preorder on 12/22.
i got most of the ones i want.
Same thing happened to me with my Newegg order of Ike, Mega Man, King Dedede, and Sonic. They've been delayed because of "stock issues".
While I've been commenting about the port slowdowns for a few weeks now on most of these articles I'd also like to point out that probably had nothing to do w/ the low levels of Wii fit Trainer and villager.
port strikes = delays
Nitnedo not producing enough = low inventory
2 different equatons
Also, we collect more SKylanders and Disney Infinity characters than amiibo, and those have had shortages and low stock on some models as well, which leads me to believe there is something to the port issues.
First off this would have been sent to all stores bu t the email and the wording is completely off second the reserves would not be handled by time of reserve it would be handled first reservees who come in will be able to pick theirs up. And again for the million time GAMESTOP CANNOT CANCEL OR ROLLOVER ANYTHING WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT. the only time anything it's canceled is if the sku is cancelled IE THE ITEM RESERVED WILL NOT BE COMING OUT.
I got my shulk and shiek the same day about a week ago...I called GameStop yesterday to see if Ike, Sonic, or at least magaman have come in (keep in mind that last week they told me they should come by the 21st of Feb) but they told me by the 25th of Feb is when they should arrive. I call everyday just to make sure. This is southern California btw.
The way to tell if this is real is to find the section that says "go ahead and sell the preorders people made to any old customer that comes in with money in hand."
@Aceboss100
I did work at GameStop for a time, and that kind of behavior is a great way to ensure that your stuff gets sold to someone else.
Working at GameStop is the very definition of having a short fuse for customer BS.
@Quorthon
What kind of behavior? The fact that I call everyday? The people that work at that GameStop are very honest with me and I respect that. Also, a friend of mine works there and he gives me all the details of the store
I already got my pre-ordered sonic and mega man amiibo's.
The real troubling business w/ the ports are such things as fruit(namely oranges) literally sitting in the ships, & rotting, due to all that mess. That's food that could feed people. Sadly, greed is responsible for this, & this will continue to happen, as it has in the past.
As for Amiibo, wh/ever is the real cause for short supply, Nintendo's rep has already been hurt in this regard, especially for those that don't keep track of videogame news, specifically Amiibo related.
I got a call from Gamestop today saying my Ike is coming in "later this spring", so who knows when that is. Awesome... Sucks too because I pre-ordered it on December 29th.
@fantasytiger86
The phone call I got today from Gamestop said otherwise. They specifically said that due to the popularity of the Ike figure, they are placing a limit of one per customer in the interest of fairness.
mega man? OH YEAH!
So I preordered both Ike and King Dedede amiibo on Dec 21st. Around Feb. 25th, King Dedede came in, but no Ike. I am going to have to wait until later spring too? I shouldn't have to according to this memo. I preordered early, so I should be expecting him soon. I'm starting to get rather anxious about it all.
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