Nintendo's amiibo toys are highly collectable items these days, so it should come as no surprise to learn that counterfeit figures are starting to appear.
Info Amiibo has reported that Mario, Link, Pikachu, and Samus figures have been spotted. Each figure has telltale signs that it's a fake - for example, Pikachu's feet are raised off his stand and his arms are fused to his body - but the biggest giveaway is the packaging, which is totally different to the official sort.
According to early reports, these figures are purely cosmetic - there's no NFC chip inside the base - but this could easily catch out unsuspecting parents who are being relentlessly harassed by their kids for more amiibo.
In short, always be sure that the figure you're buying comes from a reputable seller, and beware of loose, unboxed variants going for suspiciously cheap prices online. If you've already been stung by a fake amiibo, let us know by posting a comment.
[source nintendoeverything.com, via infoamiibo.com]
Comments 48
Love fake Samus's neck.
I'm surprised that it's taken this long for the fakes to appear :/
If you are gonna do fakes at least do the rare ones
"A Wild Fake Amiibo Appeared, it used RIP OFF, it was super effective"
Wow, that blows dude. Especially since they're just paperweights as they contain no actual chip. Some people do unbox and use them.
lol like there aren't enough Mario and Pikachu Amiibo out there...
@AyeHaley the idea is probably that because they're so common, the fakes will blend in more seamlessly, rather than stumbling across a thick vein of WiiFit Trainers, Marths, or Captain Falcons, which should set off at least some alarm bells.
It's easy to make an Amiibo with a 3d printer.
Next Nintendo console could come with a small 3d printer built-in. When you win a Mario Cup race or Smash Bro fight, the game will print out a real trophy for you.
Welcome to the world now, where everyone is money hungry and every looks forward to ripping someone off. The point is, it will be parents that will get ripped off, while some idiot smiles in his basement at the fact that he's a moron.
@Nintendian
Keep in mind that 3D printing is very expensive, and it takes a long time: fake items are very cheapley made. 3D printing is best for making prototype items on a small scale, which would then be made from moulds. I doubt that the people who make counterfeit goods would go to the trouble of 3D printing thousands of figurines.
@ZenTurtle Industrial 3d printer is fast, they were even used for printing food.
If you are a collector don't you need to ger the fakes too......just to have a complete collection?
@StarDust4Ever I like how you imply that it's uncommon that people actually use them for their intended purpose.
@StarDust4Ever I know right? Admittedly when I saw fake amiibos, my first thought was finally I can get a Marth to use. But as this stands I would be ticked off to get a fake rare amiibo only for it to not work.
I'm looking at my Pikachu Amiibo (Even though it's still in the plastic box you buy it in) the arms are kinda infused with the body, or is the fake Pikachu above have it's arms "COMPLETELY" infused?
That's human greed, for you. It's arguably humanity's biggest flaw, and can make us lose all our morals just to make a quick buck.
@Nintendian for the time being quality 3D printing is very slow and time consuming although prices have dropped some over recent years. Sure you can get low grade parts made from an extruder of some sort like makerbot et al, but for figurines it would look really bad. Complex figures also require a support material which generates waste.
Injection molding is orders of magnitude cheaper per part. $10,000 and up for a mold, but then afterwords it's like 10 cents per part. 3D printing, maybe $50-$100 a piece, little to no setup cost. Quality figurines need to be made from fine laser stintured poweder, not a spagetti strand extruder. Secondly, much surface preparation needs to be done to buff and prime the sandy texture to achieve a finished piece. Injection molded parts come out shiny every time, and the batch can be any color of the rainbow.
I recommend Shapeways for an example of quality 3D prints abd how much it costs. We will not see 3D printed McDonalds toys anytime soon.
Ol' crazy redd got into the amiibo business I see...
Hey, Mario's lost weight! And Link's cap looks like it could hurt someone.
I do use my amiibo, but I primarily purchase them for display on my and my kid's shelves. So if I were to find fake versions of Rosalina or Little Mac or Ike or Captain Falcon you bet I'd buy it, knowing full well it was illegitimate.
@Nintendian now i want a 3d printer for food.
mmmmm chocoalte cake
For all i know the ones i have might be fake. The only one i've had the balls to open was the splatoon girl
Great, prepare for kids wishing their parents were dead over fake amiibo...
Do the Skylanders/Infinity line have this problem of knockoffs?
They look ok
oh no!
AMEEBO!!!
Bad news! to hell with fakes!
THIS IS A DISGRACE! WHO THE HELL CREATED THESE FAKES.
KARMA WILL MAKE THEM PAY. As a Nintendo Amiibo collector I am trying to collect every one.
@Kaze_Memaryu Let`s get angry together! You have a (very cynical) but valid point. I kind of feel bad for parents.
DAMN IT!
@Tazcat2011
Nope! They don't need to!
@James1993 Easy there. This upsets me, too. Just take a deep breath.
@DarthNocturnal
I know we need restocks, but since these are fakes of amiibo you can find anywhere, they are not the reason why we need restocks.
@James1993 Haha, I'm not really angry about this, but I have a bad feeling about fakes in general - and I know a kid who really crossed the moral horizon over getting the wrong smartphone from his dad, so I'm cautious.
Oh no, now I'll have to be extra careful to only buy figures online that clearly don't use stock photo's and compare them to the official figure pictures.
thay dont look half bad honstly as far as Fakes go Minus Drunk Saums and Durpichus eyes.
@James1993 Your coment made me laff so mutch as I wred it in N Cortex's voice - But I do agree Fakes are a bad thing... specialy as thes dont even have the NFC Functionalty witch is the whol point to most ppl.
@Tazcat2011 as far as iv seen no but it wouldnt suprice me if there were fakes out there... unfortuntly there is allot of profit to make from fakes even from just selling stock to a Retailer who isnt paying attention (esily done) and from what some one elce sed.. something about useing Stock Imidges on Online selling sites (only advantige there is you can use the Falce advitisung argument in your favore as its not the iten you receved) - lol iv watched allot of this show calld Fake Britan all about fakes and what to do if your faced with them.
Who cares, kids are probably playing with them like dolls. Seriously who really cares at all. Same thing happens in the sculpture community as well.
This was going to happen. The video games get pirated too. http://5starblog.com/tag/nintendo/
This is the same thing with Disney pins. There are some highly collectable ones but also many fakes of said pin as well. Many people don't know or seem to care though, they just want it for their fave character.
Aside from Samus, they're actually not that bad for fakes. I kind of wish that Nintendo would take a tip and actually drop the idea of sticking NFC chips in Amiibo and including 'Disk Locked Content' in favor of having them be solely nice little figures.
On the other hand, why are they selling fake Mario's, Pikachu's and Link's? Are there not enough of these already? There's that many legit ones already hanging around that some stores are already selling them dirt cheap to get rid of the friggin' things.
If you're gonna do fakes, at least do some Rosalina's and Dedede's. I would knowingly buy one of those just because I can't get the original.
I'll take some if they start making rare ones and not ones that you can buy freakin everywhere. Nintendo's not meeting supply and demand so as much as I love you Big N, you deserve it.
@StarDust4Ever An ideal 3D printed figurine would need the looks of a glued powder part and the weight of a plastic part. If you use the powdered figurine, it will be too noticeably heavy, and if you use the cubed printers that print with plastic, it will be just the right weight that is equal to a standard amiibo. But, technology hasn't come to that point with look of powder and weight of plastic just yet, so the idea is not yet feasible, but close.
@Dolphin64 Actually most figures are printed very thin as pricing is based per cubic centimeter of material. If anything they woud be light and cheap feeling. Any amount of surface preparation won't change the fact the figure will still continue to release fine white powder from the hollowed out areas.
This powder, while harmless, has the potential to alarm consumers. If you don't believe me, send a letter to your congressman laced in baking powder and you'll probably get arrested as soon as the hazmat teams finish decontaminating the office.
Regardless, it would still cost $100+ per figurine. It's great for custom one-offs, but 3D printing technology is not yet ready for mass consumption.
@StarDust4Ever Hm, so what needs to happen, is we need to wait for plastic printing to get finer and more detailed similar to a powder printed part, but hollow and not too light to feel cheap. But like I said, it needs to be a lot more fine and detailed but less rough and choppy like what is current today. But it's all in the future I suppose.
@Dolphin64 I think 3D Printing has a long way to go yet. But I'm sure there will come a day when you can just run to Kinkos and have something "run off" cheaply. We are not there yet, however. There's a lot of materials out there right now with comoeting technologies but currently it's a toss up between cheap extruders (ie Makerbot) or $250,000 laser stinturing machines (ie Shapeways).
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