Disney Infinity Producer Brands amiibo Stock Shortages "Irresponsible And Rude"

I agree with him.

Nintendo have made too many mis-steps in recent times, this being one example...

Is it possible that the Wii U version could use the GamePad instead of the Disney dock?

I've never been interested in Infinity, but this Star Wars update might get my attention...

they're a competitor…

Maybe because people actually want amiibo, but they don't want Star Wars toys which only work with one game.

Well... Infinity figures have never been as popular as Amiibo, so...

I want to buy amiibos, but I'm not going to actually spend time looking for them. I should be able to walk into a store, or buy them online (for normal price), with no issues.

I won't be buying their "solution," which I believe will be the card deck.

@Gavin_Rozee You just described half of Amiibo, there (cough cough Villager Wii Fit Trainer Pikachu)

thems fightin words

I know Nintendo may have mishandled the amibo in some regards but I dont think its right calling it irresponsible and rude. Given Wii U's performance Nintendo understandly made some conservative estimates on which figures would likely sell the best. Also honestly I think the people complaining about the siutation have little to no understanding of how manufacturing and creating supply actually works. Nintendo can't simply churn out more Marths and more Villagers at the snap of a finger. Manufacturing contratcs are made months in advance and by the time they saw how popular say Marth really was the manufacturer had mostly moved on to something else. Its not Nintendo's fault these Hodor scalpers keep snatching up every figure in sight just so they can sell them for extorionate prices. Last time I check I think amiibo had managed to outpace DI at one point. I think someone is just jealous.

Well, he's obviously using it to promote his own brand, but he's right. It really in unexcusable.

It gets even worse for people in my country, since Nintendo withdrew official distribution earlier this year, and as such we're left at the mercy of importers. I own four amiibo at this point, and (Ness aside, but that's a long shot) I have simply given up caring to get more until they sort the stuff out.

He is 100 percent correct. Nintendo is treating the gamers like cattle. Just buy more shelf space. Nintendo can afford it!

@Gavin_Rozee shots fired

agreed.

I was in Game yesterday and the difference between the two is shokcing. There was a wide selection of Disney Infinity figures, with the pegs full. By contrast there was only 4 amiibo and all from wave 1. It is soemthing that seriously needs addressing and yeah,I have to agree it is pretty irressonsible to have such shortages

If I am reading the quote correctly, he appears to be implying that Nintendo has manipulated supply to create intentional shortages.

I doubt Nintendo has done this to the degree that people sometimes think because sales by third-parties are sales that Nintendo does not capture (or profit from). People don't seem to understand that unless the company is doing the selling in the secondary market, it makes no money from this.

About the only thing that Nintendo is guilty of is being conservative in its estimates. But I doubt it thought that people who no longer played it games (or even owned its consoles) would want to buy all the amiibo.

I just hope for this Disney officials' sake that the supply chain does not break — because Karma can be cruel.

Actually that's quite a leap as he never said Nintendo had the intention of shortages. Unless there is some other words in the full interview that make it so that is some very bad reporting and putting words in someones mouth..

Also what people seem to forget its also up to the retailers to decide how much shelf space they want to allocate for amiibo. Gamestop has been taking steps to correct the problem mainly by not taking pre orders and putting a limit of one per customer. I think they also have a system in place to stop those who use alternate accounts by looking for duplicate adresses

I don't know if I'd call it "rude," but I do agree that it was short-sighted and needs to remedied immediately, and it's clear that part of it is Nintendo's own doing. There are Mario, Bowser, and Peach figures out the wazoo, but March and Little Mac are as rare as gold.

Well I never...

Oh wait, he's right.

@Pichubby Infinity is WAY more popular than amiibo.

I had complete sympathy with Nintendo for wave 1 and 2. They had no idea how much these would sell, and it's better to under supply than oversupply. However that sympathy has evaporated. When every retailer sells out of the last few waves within minutes of pre-orders going up then you know they're being seriously undershipped. You can't blame demand. Skylands and Infinity both sell far, far more figures than amiibo and don't have these shortage problems. Now it's just become very bad management of the situation.

@ElkinFencer10 Because aside from people who 'gotta have them all' very few people even know who Marth or Little Mac are. So why would Nintendo make as many Little Macs as Mario's? Does that make any sense?

No, of course not. Nintendo knows the popularity. Mario WILL sell, Little Mac will not.

Just because he is now "rare" doesn't make him a good seller today, yesterday, back in December etc. He was packed 1 per box. He was, and will be, a poor seller. If they packed as many Little Mac's as Mario they would be all over the place and stores would be discounting them away.

Pathetic. Infinity toys are garbage. Every store has plenty of them because they don't sell.

@Wolfgabe Not sure why people think they should print millions of Marths when the Wii U itself isn't a great seller and the only other solution is a New 3DS which just came out. Why make too many toys with not enough consoles?

Oh, wait, so adults can cry when they didn't get a toy and blame "scalpers".

He's totally right. I've never had trouble finding an Infinity figure, and my family has the whole collection now. Amiibo on the other hand, we have two, weren't able to get some of the others we wanted and then gave up. Not to mention we just never found the game content offered with amiibo that compelling. DI is a ton of family fun though, so we're sticking with that.

@mike_intv First of all, do you have no concept of a collector's appetite?

Moving on; Conservative in its estimates? I'd forgive that, if we weren't on wave 4. How long do they really need to stop treating them like a cautious experiment?

Nintendo's guilt is not the secondary market, it's restricting the stock so it has to sell out. Nintendo doesn't give a damn about the secondary market because they already made all the money they wanted to make and would rather absorb the ire of their own fans than risk making enough stock to last in stores for more than one day.

Valid.

There's nothing wrong with Nintendo assuming Ike, Villager, and Little Mac won't sell well and producing fewer figures. That's logical on several levels and just good business. What is rude to fans and plain senseless business is refusing to make more when EVERY SINGLE ONE sells out. There is very clear empirical data showing the demand for these amiibo that Nintendo could easily fill and not only keep their fans happy (winning repeat business), but make more money by selling more. Obviously. Nintendo has had a long standing habit of choosing safety over risk in their business decisions, but being too safe can cost you and I think it's doing so right now.

@Peach64 Please provide statistics for the Infinity toy sales vs. Amiibos.

Or is this just your opinion?

I could see the shortages for wave 1 and 2, but we are almost to wave 5 and there are still shortages. Now I think Nintendo and especially retailers are doing it on purpose

@mike_intv

There is a reason why there are so few Amiibo. I have friends who work at EB games and they don't get many Amiibo in stock at all and yet they get tons of Skylanders and infinity characters. When you go into most stores, you'll see the typical 4 characters of Mario, Peach, Bowser and Link. You'll occasionally see others but primarily they only have those few and Nintendo has more than enough power to stock more... but they are not which tells us that they are manipulating supply.

I think Nintendo can be fairly criticized, yes. No one can argue that the popularity didn't catch Nintendo by surprise though. They may have predicted the possibility, but responsibly, they would have had to think about poor to modest sales as well and it's better to err on the side of caution when trying to come off yearly losses, something Disney as a whole is not experiencing.

So what I can tell, the whole amiibo thing is maybe more of a complicated situation that leaves Nintendo in a position to fairly take comments that they were "rude", but maybe can't actually be indicted of it

This is a classic, shining by underline how bad are the mistakes of the competition.

Hard to deny however that Nintendo served this comparison on a silver plate...

@Spoony You filthy scalper, just reading your comment made me puke. (hopefully you're kidding)

@BradXCrayon lol, you have no idea what you're talking about. http://venturebeat.com/2015/01/15/disney-claims-infinity-2-0-beat-out-skylanders-in-toy-game-hybrid-sales/

Unfortunately, I don't see Nintendo manufacturing any more amiibos... I hope they sell more 3 pack amiibos or at least have the squid by itself ... Either way I doubt it..

I feel sorry for those toy stores trying to shift pallets and pallets of 2 year unsold Skylanders and Infinity figures NO ONE wants. The first year of Skylanders was chaos (or Kaos) with understocks, but now there just seems to be miles of unsold shelf space of these figures.

For their customers Nintendo have screwed up with amiibo, but for their shareholders Activision and Disney have screwed up with their overstocks. Let's hope there's a middle ground soon.

@CosmoXY Pathetic you think an article from January 15th means anything in JUNE. You do know when Amiibo's came out, right?

@CosmoXY
I can just imagine when you have your friends over.
Friend: "Where is your Infinity Infinity Collection?
-Shows a whole rack of figurines-
"Wow! Where are your Skylanders?"
-Shows second shelf of figurines-
"Cool Cool Cool! Where are your amiibos?"
-Points to a single Mario figurine thats came package with the fireball on the bottom of the box and has been chewed on-

I'd say in my estimation that he's absolutely accurate saying stock shortages are irresponsible and rude; how could it not be? They hardly addressed the stock for the first 5 months and still don't have a proper solution that spares consumers from burning through their bank accounts for their practically useless (functionality not collectibity) Amiibo brand.

@ricklongo
Brazil?

Easy to say when Disney Infinity is the worst selling of the 3 big toys to life campaigns.

I think it is more irresponsible to make a bunch of plastic and hardware that almost no one uses. There are always Disney Infinity figures at the local retailers, in troves, in masses, they had hundreds of Hiro figures at our local walmart. Over production is worse than under production.

I would be able to get the ones I want, if the stores around here actualy took them in. After the third wave, moste stores is just taking in Mario characters and Pokémon's -.-

@ikki5 So you think Nintendo has AN elf that cane make them on demand? No, of course not.

How to solve the problem. Kill the scalpers and give their amiibo's to everyone to the world.

(Sorry, if that hurt anyone, it was a joke)

I sm finally to the point where I am considering moving from Nintendo to Sony from here on out.

@MrGawain That's the funny part. Infinity and Skyalnders have tons of unsold merchandise that clogs the pegs. They will eventually have to clearance them out little TRU is doing with Skylanders (what, $2 a pop?).

@nesvc
Just move to PC instead

@nesvc Because you couldn't get a specific toy for $13?

That's really, really sad.

I also dont think its fair for him to criticize considering how Disney understandably has greater resources and is able to keep up with demand more easily

@BradXCrayon Whoa whoa calm down big fella. That link simply shows that you're wrong that nobody wants Infinity figures. That product has been a big success for Disney no matter how you look at it. I'm not using it to compare against amiibo, never said I was.

@Tsuzura Not sure what your point is. We don't have any skylanders by the way.

C'mon. What he said wasn't that irresponsible or rude towards Nintendo. And I agree, there are waaaaay too many Infinity toys in existence. Every store seems to have an endless supply in my area. The amiibo stock situation gets fixed once and for all as soon as they release the card format amiibo for a reasonable price. The fad needs to evolve.

@CosmoXY It was a joke D:

He's right. Amiibo are a great concept and they're cool collectibles but Nintendo has really dropped the ball in terms of making them rare and unavailable. It's downright insulting actually. If they want to make rare Amiibos, okay fine then make it an alternate pose of an existing Amiibo or an alternate color scheme or something, like the silver and gold Marios - make them rare, whatever, but the fact that we can't just go to the store and buy a Shulk, a Ness, a Wario, etc...is almost vomit inducing. Okay, exaggeration. And yes I know they are optional toys that don't really affect the games that much. I get that. But these are brand new toys, and half of them are released to people who preorder them in that tiny 15 minute window when they go up for preorder and then they disappear forever. How is that fan service?

He's right, I'm a Nintendo fanboy and I think it's incredibly rude to us.

I'll just wait the follow-up response stating that Vignocchi meant it as a general business concept and not a personal attack on Nintendo and stock manipulation which most people will see it as.

Sigh, interactive toys are going to fail

@leo13 Rude to you? Because Nintendo only make x amount of a niche character and you couldn't buy one?

@BradXCrayon
Of course they shouldn't make as many as they do of Mario, but it shouldn't be literally impossible to find one when one searches literally every store that stocks amiibos for five counties around.

@Tsurii897 I can't speak to what most people do with them, but I only try to buy the ones I actually want to use in the games (except Shulk I just couldn't help myself Xenoblade is my all time favorite game). I bought a couple for my kids to use in Smash (as fighting with an Amiibo is the only way they can compete with me) and I bought the Splatoon 3 pack to get the "DLC" single player content. I'm trying to get my hands on the Fire Emblem characters to use in Codename Steam (holy crap all 4 of those are impossible to find) so far I'm 0/4 that's the part that's pissing me off I've tried really hard to find all 4 of them and I've failed miserably. It's not Best Buy's fault, it's not GameStop's fault, it's not Walmart's fault and it's not Amazon's fault IT'S NITNENDO'S FAULT!!!

@ultraraichu He wasnt talking to Nintendo specifically. I dn't see in his response the words: Nintendo and amiibo

@BradXCrayon No they don't have an elf that can make them on demand. We live in 2015 where there are contract manufacturers all over the world that are willing and able to make Amiibo for Nintendo to increase demand. For there to be a shortage for a few months means Nintendo underestimated demand, but for there to be a shortage for 7 months means that Nintendo has been unwilling to fix the problem.

@MikeW Indeed.

I think he could've got the point across without needing to bash on a competitor. You never see Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo calling each other's products bad.

"We will be sure to stock them appropriately." That's all you need to say.

@leo13 7 months from Wave 1.

Villager? New AC coming so why re-print now? (see Marth)
Wii Fit Trainer? No one cares except that its RAREZ.

What other ones?

Niche characters will get limited printings. It's that simple and has been going on with toys for decades. You will always have a Luke Skywalker on the pegs but not always a Lando Clarissian.

@ikki5 @Rect_Pola

This morning, Gamestop had online Wario, PacMan, Squid Boy, Squid Girl and Silver Mario.

What Nintendo did not anticipate were people wanting figures for games that have never sold well (or rarely sold well) — i.e., Fire Emblem.

And the hardcore shortages did not start until Wave 3 had none on store shelves. I pre-ordered every one of them, including Meta Knight, more than week after announcement. And shortages have led to a crazed frenzy of collectors and scalpers alike.

Personally, I hope more people get fed up — so I can continue to get all the amiibo that I want.

(Now don't think I don't think that Nintendo needs to make more and stop exclusives. But these things take time. And with the aggressive roll out scheduled, it may difficult to fix quickly).

I want amiibos, but Nintendo won't sell them to me.

I want Disney Infinity characters, and I have all the ones I want and I guarantee that I will have no problems getting all the Star Wars ones.

I am both a Nintendo and Disney Fanboy. I am pissed at Nintendo, I will not buy from scalpers or pay more than MSRP.

@freaksloan Nintendo WILL sell them to you. You are just too lazy to either pre-order online, wait outside, or just wait till they become available post-launch. That seems like you have a "me" problem. I have every single Amiibo simply because I pre-ordered. Perhaps next time you should try that instead of blaming Nintendo for your laziness.

And I do like your predicting for Star Wars Infinity toys. You probably will get them all since they will print way too many of them and be clearance out like all previous waves.

SEE, NINTENDO! Disney and Activision can do it properly, there is NO reason you F it up so much. FFS.

Are you guys sadists? Do you like to punish collectors and pet/stroke/groom scalpers? Get a grip.

Nintendo: "What's that? We can't hear you over this money!"
Seriously though, can't competitors tout their products without being catty about it? I'm a little less interested in DI now.

@mike_intv We are on what... wave 4? So why are there still shortages for fire emblem characters? If Nintendo didn't anticipate it at first then okay, fine but for wave 4? That's a load of BS and you know it. As for gamestop having those online this more? Well, lucky you, I guess Canada sucks then because we have hardly any.

@TheAceofMystery I know but half of the comments here seems more geared towards Nintendo stock fault and management to a personal level and few comments that see it as something any company should avoid.

Also it doesn't help that Damien wrote "Speaking to Game Informer's Ben Hanson, Vignocchi had some choice words for Nintendo on the matter:"

Just got 2 Ness' on GameStop.

Oh gees guys. So hard to get rolleyes

@MrGawain At least people can buy the figurines they want, and Disney/Activision already got their money when they supplied those stores.
And surprise surprise, they make even more money by making enough of those damn things.

Nintendo isn't the perfect company you apologetic fans make it out to be. I've been a Nintendo fan for over 20 years but this s**t is getting ridiculous.
They don't even announce restocks properly even though they promised they would.

This line:

"_ fans being forced to pay way over the odds on the secondary market in order to complete their collections_"

Caught my attention in the article.

No one was FORCED to pay more money in secondary markets. Absolutely no one. Nintendo fans helped do this to themselves the first time they were more than willing to pay absurd prices for plastic toys. That is capitalism, people. Prices went up because Nintendo fans were all too happy to pay more, and their urge to have these things outweighed the rationale about simply not buying all of them.

Here's the thing, once Nintendo fans started paying more, they not only helped drive up prices on the secondary market, but they fed scalpers and resellers the idea that they should further damage supply by buying up all the rare ones in order to resell them at higher prices.

Yes, Nintendo totally dropped the ball on these--I've been saying that the whole time. But at the same time, not a single Nintendo fan was ever "forced" to pay over retail for these things. They clearly wanted to, and clearly helped create the reseller fiasco that ensued. This is the bed Nintendo fans were all too happy to make.

Shots fired tho.

But for real I agree with this, it's honestly annoying how Nintendo is being extremely sloppy with this when they know the demand is high.

@ikki5 Because Fire Emblem is a niche series. That's why.

@BradXCrayon And that is supposed to indicate what? You think supply and demand is the same at every GameStop? WTF.

@BradXCrayon rude because they keep promising that's they'll fix it, but they aren't even trying. I was in line at Best Buy to get Robin and Lucina there was only 1 of each at the store. Since I was #6 in line I couldn't get one. No they don't owe me anything, but if they want to keep customers it is rude to tell us all these fun things with Amiibo and then promise to fix the situation and then literally do nothing

@AyeHaley No, not really. Stores can return product to distributors if they want. If the figures go on clearance consumers might be trained to just 'wait' instead of buying day 1 which will hurt them down the line.

Most of you have no idea how this stuff works, it's funny.

JUST MAKE MORE, THEY WILL SELL.

No. If Nintendo made tons of Wii Fits, Marth etc. they would be clogging the pegs and stores wouldn't order newer waves.

@BradXCrayon I'm curious if it's from the web restock happening right now.

@AyeHaley At GameStop.COM, yes.

Ordered 2.

yikes

@leo13 I pre-ordered on Best Buy.com and Amazon. Had no issues.

@Gavin_Rozee
Your post:
"Maybe because people actually want amiibo, but they don't want Star Wars toys which only work with one game."

The only way you could make such a ridiculous comment is to have never even known a single Star Wars fan. Like Amiibo, which are by and large, purchased for collectibles not their "usefulness" in games, these Star Wars figures will sell like mad, simply because they are new Star Wars figures.

The Star Wars action figure line has something around 500 or more unique figures going all the way back to 1977. A decade ago, I bought the 300th figure (which was a special edition Boba Fett) just for it. The 500th figure was Darth Vader. And it looks like they're approaching 600.

These Star Wars Infinity figures will bury Amiibo in sales.

@BradXCrayon too lazy to pre-order or wait in line. I attempted BOTH to get Robin and Lucina. The pre-orders were available for a whopping 10min and I missed it. I stood outside of Best Buy #6 in line, but they only had 1 of each. Then I played the Amazon click refresh for half hour game and missed out again. Don't you dare put this on us!

Every Wal-Mart I've been too lately has had a back end-stack filled with hundreds of last year's Disney Infinity characters that have just been sitting there for ages. There is a MASSIVE over-abundance of stock that is much greater than the demand. Disney is ultimately going to have eat the cost of a crapload of unsold stock that gets returned by the stores. Then they'll wish that they hadn't done everything in their power to avoid shortages.

@Quorthon Incorrect.

It's not hard to find new Star Wars toys. There are plenty of lines - past and present - to choose from. Big size, small size. Pops, plushes etc. Nintendo toys though...gees. Up until last year there was literally none. Now we have Jakks who mades some decent ones, import toys at $20 a pop and Amiibos. Nintendo "toys" is pretty recent.

Here is my reason I like Disney Infinity

BTW, I do think Nintendo's stock shortages are excessive. But too many people fail to realize the danger of producing too much stock that just sits on shelves. Disney Infinity has definitely leaned as far to that extreme as Nintendo has leaned to the opposite extreme.

@BradXCrayon

I have no idea what the hell you're responding to, but it clearly wasn't me. I never said anything about how recent Nintendo toys have existed or anything in that regard. You may want to check who you were actually responding to.

@leo13 Yeah don't listen to his BS. It's getting ridiculous and there is no reason they can't do it without messing up so much. 1st wave, maybe. 2nd, maybe. but the 4th and 5th? FFS.

He's obviously just try to persuade people to Disney Infinity 3.0, which is ironic because now I think he's the one who is rude.

I know this person is a competitor, but the words are true.

Nintendo has dropped the ball so badly, that it has cratered into the ground. I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt in the beginning, but things have not improved, and have gotten worse.

When I was at GameStop on wave 4 launch day, they only got pac-man and silver mario in adequate supply. There was 1 Splatoon pack, 4 individuals and 1, yes 1 Wario.

Nothing else.

Nintendo couldn't even bother to send Ness, who is exclusive to one store. This is ridiculous.

I talked to the manager of this GameStop, and he conveyed his frustration in simply saying, "They just don't send me anything."

The curse of the black lotus is strong with amiibo. Nintendo needs to fix this post haste or else amiibo will die due to consumer apathy.

@BradXCrayon I wish I was as awesome as you obviously are. What can I say I honestly wanted them so I honestly tried, but I'm obviously just not as awesome as you are

@BradXCrayon Where do you live? Like seriously where do you live cause Ness is gone and the only way you can find him is for 60 or more dollars on ebay or amazon. Yes he's hard to get giving Nintendo excuses it's funny and sad.

Heh. Shots fired.

@AyeHaley I'm glad I'm not the only one who isn't completely blinded. Yes I'm a Nintendo fanboy, but this is too much to defend.

The reason I won't waste money with "wow, so rare, wow, gamestop exclusive" figures.

Stupid marketing decisions everywhere in this brand.

Always wise to take what competitors say with a grain of salt...

However, I'm a core Nintendo fan since the NES days and fully agree with him.

@Hero-of-WiiU But he's right tho.

@Ryu_Niiyama

Did you hold this same opinion--about competitor cattiness--when Nintendo was throwing around absurd "Wii U more valuable than Xbox One or PS4" comments last fall? Or is it okay when Nintendo is catty?

@Hero-of-WiiU

"He's obviously just try to persuade people to Disney Infinity 3.0, which is ironic because now I think he's the one who is rude."

Sure yes, obviously. That doesn't mean he's wrong though.

Obvious response of the competition, that said, something really should be done. I went to preorder the Lucina amiibo at amazon per usual and I wasn't even able to see it load up let alone put it in the cart to order. And that was even with me F5ing like it was my job for 30min.

Although we wouldn't be in such a mess if we didn't have so many Nintendo fans caving into the scalper prices thus creating this market of ridiculousness. But then again, good luck organizing everyone to boycott scalpers.

Watch it, you guys! I'm running out of microwave popcorn!
Seriously, though. I wouldn't call it rude. Just... underestimated. I also agree with the idea that you just have to walk in store and grab an amiibo or go online and close the computer with the mindset that you're getting an amiibo.

@Quorthon Long time no see. Actually I hate it when any company does that. Focus on your positives...the consumer market will find your negatives. Hence the wording of my post.

I'll still get the few DI figures I want but I'm less enthused now.

EDIT: While I wasn't a big fan of Reggie's quote it has proven correct for me so far. Since I'm a PC gamer (which keeps me well stocked on non WiiU games) I'm desperate for E3 to give me some hope for the Twins. Since I don't buy a system until I hit 5 games (that I don't have to import) that I want, I'm getting nervous that I may actually not have everything this gen.

Shots fired. And they hit the target.

@VeeFlamesNL Don't worry! I have a whole box of popcorn for cases like this! :>

Yeah, right. It's no wonder Disney Infinity NFC toys can be found without problems, when they only have one game/line of games to be used with and need a peripheral to do so.

Burn.

The problem to me is not the initial shortage and Nintendos response since they are new to this. My issue is that they just keep going. Wave after wave doing the same thing, keeping their original plan rather than addressing issues. That's bad...

In Nintendo's defense, making enough stock is something that takes a few months, and is no easy fix...however, we are now going into wave 5, and things haven't improved at all (you could even make the argument that it's gotten worse), so yeah, this is bullsh*t. I get it, making restocks takes time, but it's been six and a half months. How much more time do you need!? Also, past figures I can understand, but how do you explain why Nintendo isn't making enough figures of the new waves despite already knowing about the problem? I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to agree with this guy. There are only roughly ten amiibos that you can find in stores or online...out of FORTY. That is by no means acceptable! Also there's the fact that they think that exclusives is a good idea. I get it, Nintendo. Making more is something that takes time, and I can tell that you're at least trying with some restocks (very small restocks, but restocks nonetheless), and the act that you're shipping 2 million a month, but that doesn't change that this whole situation is just horrendous in every single way.

He's not wrong. I wouldn't go so far as to call it "rude", but it certainly is irresponsible - especially how slow Nintendo was to address stock shortages, and even then, their explanation wasn't all that satisfying.

100% agree with him. Retail space is a poor excuse. Nintendo's web store should ALWAYS be stocked and limited to 1 per customer. I love Nintendo games but their business side leaves a lot of room for improvement.

He didn't call the stock shortages "irresponsible and rude." He said that creating shortages intentionally is "irresponsible and rude." If that's what Nintendo is indeed doing--not that I think it is--then he's right.

@BradXCrayon

You must really love cheap plastic kids toys if this topic caused you so much irritation you decided to make an account here to discuss it haha.

Also lol @ thinking Star Wars toys aren't popular. It's almost a guarantee that they will be the hottest toys this Christmas

Except that Amiibo are popular. Disney Infinity figures stayed on the shelves even when Target had it's 60% off liquidation sale. All the amiibo were gone when the sale was only 20%

Meanwhile at SheldonRandoms SwelltasticallySwelltasticStudios, we don't have a Ness amiibo on the shelf TwT

@NintendoFan64 Well, I still think about which amiibo will have uses and which one will not. WFT, Little Mac, amiibo of third party characters.... Is there any guarantee that those amiibo will have any other use apart from Smash? While I understand the situation should not be as bad as it is now, I'd totally understand if they were considerably rare. But yeah, the amiibo issue is not great. Shortages in addition with exclusives... That's not how I'd do it, IMO. Especially with the exclusives.
P.S. Amiibo may be collected for many reasons, but Nintendo has always emphasised amiibo's main reason: functionality in games. If amiibo A doesn't have much use, then it won't be that as mass produced as the amiibo with more use.

The Star Wars figures are still going to sell out anyway. I heard it was HELL to get Frozen ones when they first came out.

Funny thing is how people are surprised that nintendo has rare stuff lol..it kills me,nintendo has been doing this since 1985 with rare items.this is nothing new.besides that I have the display case for super Mario bros.3 from mcdonalds with all toys included.i have rare shirts toys ect,ect.thats what makes nintendo,nintendo.lol monopoly board, zelda ,mario and pokmon.no buddy whining about that

Two points

1) The title of the article is absolute click bait. Not like NintendoLife to use such tactics. The quote didn't seem nearly as bad in full context.

2) He's a competitor! He has to take shots at an obvious screw up by Nintendo. Had the problem been fixed, I think it would be a quick "hey, they kinda screwed that one". But Nintendo has failed wave, after wave, after wave and now it's an industry joke. As a hardcore Nintendo fan since the 80's, it is disrespectful to not fix the problem and continually say crap like "Please understand". It's patronizing and rude.

I can always trust that when I read about this kind of stuff on Nintendolife as opposed to the rest of the web, there will be dozens of fanboys trying to defend another horrible practice, as opposed to realizing that even their favourite company makes mistakes, and loyalty to them is just a stupid thing to have as a consumer.

I hate to agree but I do...

slap fight

Spot on.

Irresponsible maybe Rude? hell no Again I think a lot of the people siding with this guy have zero understanding of how manufacturing and gauging demand works. You really expect them to make a ton of figures of a character based off a game series that has not traditonally sold well in the west. Its called common business sense

Irresponsible maybe Rude? hell no Again I think a lot of the people siding with this guy have zero understanding of how manufacturing and gauging demand works. You really expect them to make a ton of figures of a character based off a game series that has not traditonally sold well in the west. Its called common business sense

It's not all nintendo's fault. They came to retailers and asked how many figures. Most thought there wouldnt be demand so accordingly Nintendo planned for the demand as requested by retailers. This came from convesartions I had with the management in numerous retailers. The demand for infinty was there from the beginning, and realeasin in more than one platform gives them more reason for higher stock. The othwr thing is that these figures are not nearly as collectible.

@arronishere Yeah, there ya go. He basically sounds like he's saying that Nintendo isn't doing it on purpose. It doesn't come off as attacking them, though I can see that perspective, as well.

When you think about it, amiibo and Infinity figures are very different products.

Well I can't pretend it wasn't frustrating.

I'm surprised Vignocchi said something like this. He seems like a friendly guy. I guess when talking about competition all bets are off.

I'm surprised Vignocchi said something like this. He seems like a friendly guy. I guess when talking about competition all bets are off.

Already we're seeing some of these rare amiibos NOT selling out of their restock allotment. Ike is still up for pre order in Japan, has been for almost a week (compare that to the usual 5 minutes), MetaKnight is STILL up for pre order on Amazon DE 2 weeks running, Splatoon boy and girl can be found in just about any country now, Silver Mario is still around in NA...

Point being, I see how quickly it went from scarcity to unwanted stock no one is buying. So as Nintendo proceeds with these restocks, they must be extremely careful not to overdo it.

@Dr_Corndog
I can't believe so many people are missing this. It's like they never read the article itself inlcuding the quote and just reacted to the headline.

That would never happen on the internet though. <_<

So he wants piles of un-bought figures around? Infinity I normally see in large amounts. Sure star wars ones might sell easily but I think I'll still see them sitting in size-able amounts. I do see amiibo around but mainly the common figures or Mario edition ones in any amount. He certainly has come off as rude and cocky, I'll give him that.

I was under the impression that amiibos don't sell well, at least in Europe, or rather Germany.

Normal price is 12,99€ here, but big retailers like MediaMarkt already selling them out to make space for other stuff.
I picked up 6 amiibos there: Samus, Luigi, Pikachu, Peach, Fox, and Diddy Kong for 40€ instead of 78€.

@krakensoup
Vomit inducing? What part about not being able to buy a toy is "vomit inducing"?

People don't get it. Nintendo is producing 70,000 amiibos per DAY (verified fact, look it up). Not only continuing the Smash line but also trying to restock older waves. It's easy to have plenty Mario's and Zelda because those will sell. It's NOT so easy with niche characters. Because those have roaring demand up to a certain point, then the demand falls off the cliff entirely. Overproduce and it's not just a guess, it's a fact every last one will end up rotting on the shelf. We already see this happening with Ike and MetaKnight in other regions. Restock hit, and guess what. They didn't even sell out of pre orders.

I know we live in a microwave society but have a little patience. Restocks are hitting everywhere left and right. But if you want one you need to pre order. Because Nintendo is specifically going to avoid putting extra stock on the shelves for niche characters

@JaxonH The fact that they're not producing enough of the more "niche" characters to meet to demands. There's no way they're making enough of ALL of them. There are plenty of Marios, Bowsers, Luigis, Links, etc but what about Shulk, Ness, Marth, and the 3 Pack of Splatoon? If they made enough to meet demand they wouldn't be going for $50+ on eBay being sold by scalpers.

That's quite easy for such a big company to say. Frankly, what supplier is going to dare to make demands of Disney?

@arronishere I agree

@Wolfgabe
The how come there are many Mario's and Links available? Sure they are popular, but given the success of the product I'm surprised Nintendo haven't mass produced some of these figures. I'm pretty sure more people want Shulk or Little Mac than Peach, yet tons have been made and are still being shipped.

I love how everyone is blaming Nintendo of the amiibo shortage, yet they defend them in the comments of this article.

This guy is 100% correct. Amen.

@krakensoup
No I get that. What I'm saying is they're working on it, and already we're beginning to see the demand be exceeded by supply in more and more regions

I'm working on a short film called The Amiibo Murders. It's based in the near future & will probably be hammered with legal action to prevent any release ever.

hah, he's so right! I can't believe anyone is still defending Nintendo... and yes, the 'amiibo-fail' is totally their fault!

I don't want either. All of these figurines are just plastic tat.

Considering Disney has been producing toys for much longer than Nintendo, it's pretty ignorant to say such a thing without any insight on the current situation, or even considering how big of a departure this is for Nintendo from their console/game manufacturing activities.
Besides, Infinity figures are undetailed and plain (and ugly as all hell), so of course they're easier to produce.

@LUIGITORNADO
Honestly, welcome to the world of toy collecting. Nintendo is far from the first company to do such a thing.... Hasbro has had the same problem for years.

I have Toad and the Splatoon 3-pack, but only because they unlock features of games I have (I don't have SSB), and I won't pay more than original list price. Collecting? Forget it! Not in this market.

@Wolfgabe

"Irresponsible maybe Rude? hell no Again I think a lot of the people siding with this guy have zero understanding of how manufacturing and gauging demand works. You really expect them to make a ton of figures of a character based off a game series that has not traditonally sold well in the west. Its called common business sense."

Riddle me this then. How is it that on launch day of wave 4 my GameStop had only Silver Mario and Pac-Man in a decent supply. There was 1 Splatoon (3) pack, 4 individuals (boy and girl), and ONE Wario.

That's it. On launch day. When the store opened!

They didn't even have Ness, who is an exclusive.

There are holes in your theory. Why didn't they get Charizard? He's only one of the most popular Pokemon characters ever.

It doesn't necessarily have to do with who is popular and who isn't (but yes, that matters to some degree). There is some serious supply and demand problems going on, and Nintendo has been very slow to fix it. So slow in fact, that things only seem to be deteriorating with each passing wave. The fact that Charizard is nowhere to be found does not give me hope that things are going to be improving anytime soon.

Remember when Marth (supposedly) got a re-run? Some GameStop's only got two, as reported by NL. As in one for you, and one for me — oh wait they sold out, so never mind. Why did they even bother honestly?

What I don't understand is, given just how popular these things are, why only Japan has been getting most of the re-runs. You say that we know little about manufacturing yet, even I understand that, if the machines are setup for characters X,Y and Z, why not make more for everyone? It's costs an insane amount of money to switch equipment out, so it's simply illogical to me to just do it for just one country. Especially when the demand is even higher elsewhere.

Hell, people want them so badly that western customers (via Amazon, etc.) have drained a lot of the Japanese stock. Nintendo's failure to adapt to the fact that 70% of all amiibos sold went to NA during the holidays, has been lackluster at best.

Whatever contracts Nintendo has with the factories where they are being produced, need to be renegotiated. Or, they simply need more factories to produce more. We understand these things take time, but Nintendo has known about this since December, when Iwata was apparently surprised that Villager was $90 on Amazon. They have said very little, other than, "We're sorry. We might make more."

@Ryu_Niiyama

I have a PS4, but the similarity between the Xbox, Playstation, and PC platforms is a big reason why I just wish this industry would move towards a unified format.

Something rather like the Steam Machines where anyone can make a console of differing power and price points, and all games are made scaleable for the hardware (using refined engines), and an organization like the ESA sets a "new minimum power" standard every 5 years.

For non-PC gamers, Reggie's comments were monstrously stupid and uninformed. The XBO and PS4 only cost $50 or $100 more, and for that same holiday season, they both came with games, way more storage space, robust online features and games, way more power, way more games, and both had a lot more content in-coming. The Wii U is the fastest I've ever, essentially, stopped playing a Nintendo console. A personal anecdote, to be sure, but this is from a life-long Nintendo fan who buys Nintendo first and foremost, and then the "secondary" platform. The PS4 just keeps offering all that I want. I'm still working through Bloodborne. And like last gen with the X360, the Nintendo console is now pushed to the side as the secondary machine.

At this point, I'd really rather they just go third party. No one seems to buy Nintendo consoles for third party games (apparently I was one of the last), Nintendo has no idea how to get the support, fans are adversarial towards 3rd parties, and it's increasingly difficult to justify the purchase of hardware that is going to be so rarely used. The Wii U is already lingering along at the dead pace of the dreadful final years of the N64.

It's good that it worked out for you, thus far, though. At least Fallout 4 is coming this year.

@ericwithcheese2

I think "rude" is a decent descriptor of Nintendo's attitude here because they have been consistently repeatedly vague in explaining anything to consumers. A lot of "maybe we'll make more" and "we might have solutions" and "just buy stupid cards instead." A great deal of their comments towards consumers have been a combination of rude, insensitive, aloof, and arrogant. Fine qualities at times (some people deserve rudeness), but not when you're trying to sell a product--and totally failing at it.

I'm still just shocked that their initial shipments last December for wave 1 were apparently intended to be the only shipments of so many figures. The way they addressed consumers was basically to either ignore them or give them non-answers.

This is a big part of why my interest in these things plummeted very quickly. I'm pleased to see that Pac-Man is actually visible in the occasional retail store. But it's still a far cry from what this should've been.

I suppose they should get all they can from these things now, because once fall and winter roll around, the Star Wars Infinity figures start showing up, coupled with a new Star Wars movie--nobody but the last remaining Nintendo fanboys are going to care about these things.

I would not be surprised at all if the Amiibo line is dead and gone by the middle of 2016.

@TheRedCap30 " I'm pretty sure more people want Shulk or Little Mac than Peach, yet tons have been made and are still being shipped."

Sorry but you're wrong. Why would more people want Shulk than Peach? About 1 million people(myself included) have even played the game he starrs in.

A lot of the most demanded figures are obscurer Nintendo characters who are demanded mostly due to shortages. There's a very fine line between overproducing the obscure characters, wasting money and destroying the demand and producing the appropriate amount for the demand which due to scalpers grabbing so many of them is made even more difficult.

How do they produce enough for one for everyone who wants one without flooding the market or a scalper taking as many as they can buy forcing shortages?

@Quorthon

"I'm pleased to see that Pac-Man is actually visible in the occasional retail store."

I believe this has to do with Nintendo negotiating with Namco, Capcom, Sega, etc. to release reasonable amounts of their toys. I've seen at least decent supplies of Pac-Man, Mega Man and Sonic. So it is entirely possible to produce enough of them, but Nintendo just seems to be shrugging their shoulders every time their characters sell out in minutes. The worst is the FE characters. There's actually a pretty decent feature in Code Name STEAM, and no one can use it because they don't exist anywhere. I believe we discussed this before, so sorry if I'm reliving the past.

I feel bad for people buying this stuff. They're essentially collectibles with DLC which I will never use. I cant even comprehend a customer collecting all these toys.

@Kaze_Memaryu : I hate amiibos but I fully agree with you. The Disney conglomerate can over supply and now have Marvel and Star Wars to rely on. Nintendo just got back into toy making, and it seems as if they planned for this to be for collectors only at the start of this. Now, they're altering plans, but it takes time considering the quality of figures compared to Disney.

"Irresponsible and rude".

Attn: Nintendo - that was a 'put down'.

@Kaze_Memaryu I totally disagree with you. Vignocchi is anything but ignorant. He's a huge gamer himself and a passionate game developer. You have a right to an opinion about the Infinity aesthetic, but just to be fair, there is a huge community of fans of all things DI. There's a widely held belief that Infinity figures are quality-made and good-looking collectables.

@Cyberbotv2 Considering your avatar, I thought you'd be interested to know that Vignocchi is actively working on incorporating Michael Jackson's Captain Eo into a future Infinity release. Could be fun to play as Elsa, Yoda, Hulk and Jackson all in one game!

@Gavin_Rozee

Plenty of people will since Star Wars is an almost universally loved franchise...and to me this article sounds more like a snotty sibling saying, he didn't do his chores but I did and expecting to get praised for it. Not that I disagree with what they're saying but still.

@BradXCrayon

Except you know, Punch Out was on the Wii and Lil Mac came out in the new Smash Bros. It's not like its the same case with Popo and Nana

@JaxonH Alright well if that's the case I'll sit tight and hopefully they can correct this problem. But until then the shortage is a problem. A first world problem, yes but a problem nonetheless.

While I do agree that amiibo stock shortage is horrible, how's to say your not going to make the same mistake as well, Disney?

From what I remember, Nintendo said something about amiibo being an "overwhelming success." My guess is that they didn't think that their figures would millions(?) in the course of a couple of months. They should fix that shortage, though. My point is, maybe 3.0 will be a breakout success and sell millions of figures. I don't think Disney is expecting that. I don't think it will become as successful as amiibo, but who knows?

By the way, have you ever noticed that their are TOWERS of skylanders and Infinity people, but only a little shelf for amiibos?
(I think I made no sense during this post)

Wave four and Nintendo either hasn't learned or doesn't care.

@Ephidel that may be how waves 1 and 2 went, but I've talked to a couple managers too and they'd LOVE to have more of them, but they can't get more. They've had to cancel preorders

@Godlygamer of coarse there's only a little shelf for Amiibos why allocate more space when you can't get enough to fill 1 shelf

Well if anyone knows how to milk their franchises, it's Disney. But sadly, their games are just a steaming pile of shiny poop. So Nintendo still wins

@CosmoXY : What?! A Captain Eo figure?! Here I am laughing at Amiibo and Infinity customers, and I would be first on line for Captain Eo. And I would buy 20 of them. Ahhhh!! My brain just exploded from the hype of this!

Didn't Nintendo just say that they are working on a cheaper amiibo brand that's easier to have stock like cards? Where can you go wrong in that?

Why we don't just go at Foxcon factories with whips and tell them to work faster?

my classmate works in gamestop and straight up she told me that the employees called dibs on the entire amiibo restock, actual customers seriously didn't have a chance.

@Aurumonado That's because most people who were going to buy the Infinity figures bought them earlier on. 60% off is a decent amount, but my family bought them all months ago. Its funny though as we have Skylanders, Infinity, and Amiibo and yet the Amiibo figures probably have the least in game value compared to the other figures yet they sell out everywhere because of their limited numbers.

We're slowing down on Skylanders having only bought only about 40% of figures. We'll buy the base game this year and maybe a flying and water vehicle. Disney Infinity we'll likely buy them all. And Amiibo we can only buy what we are lucky enough to preorder or find on shelf at retail. Still it's good to know that the Star Wars and other 3.0 figures should be readily available.

@ancientlii I would believe it. With the stories like that of the Target manager who horded amiibo to sell online telling customers they couldn't buy them, this makes sense. I was able to grab preorders on Lucina, Robin (Reflet), and Ness from Playasia a few months back for $20 each, which is about the most I will pay for a single amiibo.

Some of you are Nintendo apologists. Call them out when they are in the wrong. I do believe Nintendo purposely hold supply back for higher demand. It's not cool. They can easily make more amiibos if you see that the market is high for them. Also Nintendo needs to not make stores hold exclusive figures. Make it readily available to all.

The guy (Disney Infinity) had a good point. I'm upset with Nintendo with the handling of amiibos. They got to get it together here!

Even if he has a point, we all know Vignocchi's just taking a cheap-shot to promote his own product. (takes me back to the days of "Blast-processing")

@Rafie I think there are a lot of us upset with Nintendo's handling of the amiibo situation. We are told by Bill Trinen and others to "stay in the loop", but even that is near impossible to get some of the exclusive figures.

As much I'm sure Nintendo has apologized, they are most certainly happy with how amiibo has turned out. Honestly, it would probably been a bigger deal to them if the amiibo weren't selling. Not that they aren't. Because regardless of how rare some amiibo can be, Nintendo is still making a good profit off of them. Sure, if there were no shortages amiibo would make them even more money, but perhaps their popularity would fade out sooner. Short stock keeps interest in their product for longer periods of time. Sucks for collectors though.

Irresponsible? Yes. Rude? Not really, it's not like they're doing it on purpose. They just VASTLY underestimated the demand these would have abd are doing a poor job fixing the problem.

Even the niche characters are selling out in seconds here in 'Merica. Actually, the niche characters are the ones selling out the fastest. Try to find a US Robin and Lucina, I dare you.

I do get that there is a problem with amiibo but don't u recall having a problem with the first set of disney infinity toys when the first game came out. Cuz i just checked online and there were websites from 2013 saying that there were rare and hard to find figures that u could only buy online. Plus i know disney infinity is a popular game but the popularity of disney infinity figures just don't compete with amiibo. Amiibo u can use them in many different games ,although some of the features are a little dull, disney infinity figures can only work with one game unless u use old ones like wreck it ralph. And i know there is new features in like every game but really the figures don't do really any thing else except allow u to play as that character. Amiibo's give u free things in hyrule warriors, give u aharder opponent in ssbu & 3ds, mii racing suits and more stuff and more stuff to come later on. Like i said the features of amiibo are dull right now like what the toad amiibo does in captain toad ( just gives u a pixel toad to look for. Not that great) but nintendo said the potential of amiibo has yet to be realized. I Know that nintendo has had some big issues this generation but since u had the same problem u should be cutting them some slack for at least a while. Amiibo have only been out for like 6 months. I know I've had my fair share of complaints about nintendo ( even amiibo) but it's just a problem with amiibo manufacturing. U have to make a document ahead of time to get the amiibo manufactured and the amiibo are also hand painted and mario doesn't have as much detail as marth so u can see why marth is a little hard to restock. And i get the whole popularity thing with amiibo and that's why there's more marios than marths but i can agree that marth shouldn't be near impossible to find. Maybe they should have waited on the restock and released marth when they had enough. But in all fairness I think it's fair enough for us to give nintendo a break and let them figure it out. U made the same mistake so u shouldn't be cutting them some slack.

@Dr_Lugae
All the collectors want Shulk. All the people who play Xenoblade want Shulk. Nintendo fans in general want Shulk. People who main him in Smash want Shulk. Same goes for Ness, a far more popular character than Shulk as Earthbound is a cult classic, yet he is a unicorn. See what I am getting at? People will literally lie and cheat each other out for these figurines. If they don't do something soon, there core amiibo crowd will get tired of all the nonsense they have to deal with. For example, I want Villager because I main him in Smash, I have played Animal Crossing, and his amiibo is cool. But a Villager amiibo hasn't even been restocked in the US since NOVEMBER. Once I get Villager, I'm done with amiibo unless Nintendo starts stocking each figure online for more than 5 minutes, or that each store gets constant stock of rare amiibos.

I get he's jelly that Infinity figure aren't as in demand (probably the main reason their stocks are fine), but he makes a fair point, Nintendo should really get on top of their Amiibo supply and demand, but personally I've never really had too much of a problem with it. Most of the time I can simply walk in to a shop that stock Amiibos and find the one I want.

Jealousy is not becoming, Wait until they make some real games for amiibo then you will never find any!

Regarding Amiibo, I don't think Nintendo nor the customers come out covered in glory.

2 things. This is a stupid article. Secondly how many spoilt brats are here defending Disney! You'd think Nintendo were producing plasma or antibiotics. Poor management by a Nintendo trying to keep costs down in a very tough few years. Disney sell a redundant portal to wiiu owners with NFC. That's rude

@CosmoXY Feel free to disagree, but it's saying nothing about this guy that he's a passionate developer - so were the peeps who made Hostel. It doesn't give his viewpoint any additional meaning, importance, or context. He's just a guy - and just like most other guys (including me) he doesn't seem to know the reasons behind the amiibo shortage situation.
But that's not even important. What I actually find irritating is that he's so presumptious as to state his viewpoint as the producer of a competing product instead of doing so as a private person. It's not far away from propaganda to badmouth others without any knowledge of situational context.

Also, I'm not surprised that Disney fans like Infinity - for the last 10 years I've struggled to understand how their stuff is still so popular when the actual quality is becoming a sad parody of their own past ingenuity.

@Kaze_Memaryu Ha, you must be right, I'm sure the guy has his position at one of the most competitive entertainment companies in the world because he's totally clueless about the situations of his competitors. Makes total sense.

As for struggling to understand the popularity of Disney and their products in the last ten years, I guess if you can't appreciate Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, Big Hero 6, Toy Story 3, Up, Phineas & Ferb, Gravity Falls, Maleficent, Muppets: Most Wanted and the Marvel Cinematic Universe for example I don't know what to tell you. I'm sure hating on Disney is cool and all but in the mean time my family and I will enjoy Inside Out, Ant Man and Star Wars later this year.

Not saying Nintendo is doing this now, but they have been infamous in the past for withholding stock of products and trying to control the market, especially for in demand products.

They were especially infamous for this in the 80s with NES carts.

http://www.ocalapost.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/shots-fired.jpg

@NintyMan i agree with but i also kinda agree with the disney producer however it's mostly the retailer's fault because they did not set a limit so they had a hand in helping those scalping rainbow trouts. speaking of does anyone have a lucina amiibo i can buy from?, the most i can pay is $25 usd (which translates to $20 usd+ $5 usd s/h), i don't mind if she is not in her box, what matters is her condition, works and in an acceptable condition aesthetically and i believe amiibos are region-free.

This article's headline is a blatant misrepresentation of an executive's statement. The alleged "choice words" presented as being a quote here are heavily paraphrased - never actually occurring during the entire 44 minute interview from which they originated. For the full context and evidence, fast forward to 35 minutes and 45 seconds in and give it a listen..

All of Vignocchi's comments during the question pertained directly to the Disney Infinity line of products and to claim that him stating company policy somehow equates to branding a competitor as "irresponsible" or "rude" borders on slander. Vignocchi was not addressing the amiibo situation and, in fact, there was a transition in the interview into the potential popularity of Disney Infinity's new line that negated the need to even do so. In order for his comments to even be perceived as being applicable to Nintendo in the first place, he would have had to state or at least imply that Nintendo deliberately creates shortages, which was, of course, never said nor implied.

I would surmise NintendoLife merely skimmed the Destructoid article and wrote this piece with no ill intentions, but I feel this is worth bringing to light in the interest of debunking fiction presented as fact.

@datamonkey Well said.

I have faith that the Amiibo situation will be sorted out eventually but likely not anytime soon. Remember how hard it was to get a Wii at launch? Nintendo went through not one but two holiday seasons unable to provide sufficient supply to meet demand. They played it safe and will probably continue to do so to avoid excess stock.

@bherdm Well Infinity uses pads 1.) for the figure & 2 for power discs.
There might be a possible work around, but it might make it awkward to play the game compared

As a massive Discworld fan, I'll compare original Amiibo runs with original Discworld runs (or Dune). People completely underestimate the potential, and don't invest a lot in the production run or marketing, and then they are left unable to deal with the massive surprising demand for a couple of years.
As NIntendo are a big company, they have been able to really ramp up production, and stock levels have really picked up. But because there are some older figures some people still can't get, some people are upset and think Nintendo are being really cruel.

@shadowhive
That's always what I see as well.

@CosmoXY Don't twist my words around to make a point. I never said the man doesn't understand how the competition works at all, but neither he nor anyone else currently knows why amiibo shortages are a thing, so he just insults Nintendo through baseless assumptions - that's anything, but definitely not befitting for a representative for a big company.
Also, it's pretty patheyic to just shrug off my dislike for Disney with "it's cool to hate Disney" when it's somewhat obvious how much their quality has diminished in the last several years, even for several long-time Disney fans.

@Ryu_Niiyama It won't be long now. Persona 5, Disgaea 5, Everybody's Gone to Rapture, No Man's Sky, and Until Dawn. With P5 will be releasing in the west simultaneously with Japan and Until Dawn will be out in August I think, and Disgaea should be coming to NA Q3 2015. Add in Bloodborne, which is great, and you're looking pretty good. Of course it all depends on the kind of games you like. My brother has a One which he really likes, but the only games he really plays on it is the Forza series.

@Kaze_Memaryu
"he just insults Nintendo through baseless assumptions - that's anything, but definitely not befitting for a representative for a big company"

Except that he doesn't - skip to 35 minutes and 45 seconds into the interview from which this "quote" originated for the full context. He never claimed to know anything about amiibos in the slightest. If you still believe he's slagging Nintendo, let alone even addressing amiibos or their situation in the slightest, I'm interested in your reasoning.

This man's reputation is being marred entirely by the way websites are reporting him. He states his company's policy and, if anything, went out of his way to avoid mentioning amiibos or Nintendo's practices.

@Kaze_Memaryu You come across as pretty naïve if you believe that an executive making a living for at least the last three years in the interactive gaming and toys to life space doesn't know why a competitor's shortages are "a thing."

On Disney as a whole, I gave you several examples of properties that are beloved around the world, generally praised by critics and fans, and huge financial successes. Not to mention many of the examples I gave you have either been nominated for or earned top awards.

You haven't been able to give an example of Disney's "somewhat diminished quality." I will help you with that - Lone Ranger, Cars 2, John Carter. Sure, not everything that comes out of Disney today is golden. But it never was that way. For every Pinocchio there is a Song of the South, for each Mary Poppins there is a Pete's Dragon, for every Oliver and Company there is a Black Cauldren. Don't get me wrong, those movies all have fans and are considered classics but if you objectively look at the later in each of those examples you'll find that throughout the history of the company there are ups and downs. But given the examples from my post above I'd say Disney is in a pretty good place right now.

Now all that being said, I have no interest in any further back and forward with you. For you to dismiss my previous response to you as "pretty pathetic" shows that you are probably going to ignore thoughtful and reasoned dialogue in favor of hostile and rude language.

Have a great day!

@Ark I was of the view that his quote was misunderstood as well but if you do listen to his entire answer, it's clear he believes the amiibo shortage was artificial.

He even closes off his answer by saying, "...to answer your question, we won't create artificial demand".

@Ryu_Niiyama

Us: What does it sound like Nintendo?
millions of gold Mario coins raining from the sky

The problem is this is also very hypocritical of John Vignocchi because while they may produce the figures, they are only releasing a limited number of the King Mickey power discs which will never be sold in stores. If you check eBay, there are so many that are ridiculously overpriced from people who obviously got them only to sell to those who want them for their collection.