Poll: We Need to Talk About amiibo - Where Do You Stand?

Just got Ness today!!!

I'm more for just collecting them, than actually using them.

That's mostly because I only have a =NEW= 3DS XL and no WiiU.

It's just such a pain when the only ones I want are all dubbed "Unicorns"

I love the Amiibo as a concept as well as the figures themselves. However, Nintendo has completely screwed up the supply chain end of things. I'm luckier than some as I am only missing one figure (Shulk), but Nintendo's handling of the supply chain has been a absolute joke, with them not sending out anywhere near enough of most characters to meet demand. Amiibo have great potential but unless Nintendo fix the supply chain they risk alienating consumers. The cards will be an interesting test of extending the concept but I'm not sure how I feel, it will depend on price since I generally hate anything blind packed unless it's really cheap (blind packing is what put me off the Pokemon Rumble U figures, which you could call a precursor to Amiibo).

With Wii U not doing well, Nintendo couldn't afford unsold inventory. They had to take a conservative view on what amiibo's popularity would be. They were wrong, and I guarantee they began correcting their orders as soon as they could. However, manufacturing contracts have to be in place months in advance, and they couldn't just make more Marth or Villager amiibo, because by the time they knew what demand was there the manufacturer would have moved on to another contract. I know it's frustrating, but a little reality about how manufacturing works would be nice.

I gave up on the Smash collection after just three figures, but I have all the Splatoon ones. I like them, but they should do more with them and preferably not lock exclusive content behind any of the rare ones.

I just went crazy with the wave 4 amiibos. I went from 6 to 14 amiibos. I just wish all the released one would be readily available at my local shop. The low supply and exclusives are so annoying...

How do I stand on amiibo, personally don't have much interest in them brought myself Captain Falcon might get Ness but won't pay above rrp or goose chase for one and kind of wanted the Squid amiibo but seeing as that was a bundle exclusive and the game was a lot cheaper separately I passed on it. Functionality wise they haven't done anything that screams must buy to me sure they look neat but I don't need a bunch creating clutter, I do hope Nintendo will just put some of the content for games locked by amiibo on the eshop for a reasonable price as even though I like the MK8 skins I'm not paying £11+ to unlock one costume.

Stock and availability issues aside: As figures/collectibles I like them, as "game enhancements I think they are a "meh". If and when they release a Skylanders-esque game then I'll be more interested.

The general excitement has diminished for me, but I enjoy amiibo nonetheless just for the figures moreso than the in-game bonuses. Getting all the ones I wanted has been rather smooth for me. At worst, I ended up paying £30 each for Robin and Lucina but everything else went well.

I don't like them as unlocks. Splatoon's challenges are all in the game, but before you're allowed to play them , you must go on ebay, get some overpriced toys from scalpers, and then touch that plastic toy to your wii u controller before you're allowed to play stuff that's ALREADY in the game.

Amiibo are used best when you store data to them - because then they may actually be able to be used in unique ways.

I'm certain starting Amiibo with Smash was a huge mistake, Mario Kart or Mario Party would of been better for stock levels

To be honest I gave up after Rosalina. If I see a rare one I'll pick it up but other than that I could care less about amiibo anymore.

Amiibos are actually a cool idea. There's just some problems that need to be fixed, not just by Nintendo, but by retailers, too. Here are the things I'd fix:
Retailers:
1. Add more shelf space. Whenever I go into my Gamestop, the first thing I see is a table holding a tower of Skylander figures, and next to it is a wall of Disney Infinity figures, both having a robust cast of different characters. So tell me…why is it that amiibos only get this one, tiny corner in the back, with only a handful of characters?
2. Limit the amount you can get. Stores are already starting to do this, so…good. Keep doing that. Not sure how I feel about Gamestop getting rid of pre-orders, though…
Don’t think I’ve forgotten about Nintendo:
1. Make more stock. This is the most obvious one. However, they say that they’re working on it, so I’m just going to assume that it’s taking longer than expected, and not get mad about it. If we’re still having these problems by the time amiibos become a year old, THEN I’ll start getting mad about it. Also, I’m hoping that they do reprints of all of the old ones, because there are a LOT that people have missed out on due to a lack of stock (I’m still looking for the following: Fox, Villager, Pit, Little Mac, Shulk, Lucario, Jigglypuff, and Ness.)
2. Instead of releasing a new wave every 2 months, why not release a new wave every 4 months? That way, they can have more stock prepared at launch, and they can reprint some older ones during the 4 months in between.
3. STOP DOING EXCLUSIVES!

I was gonna get the Inkling Boy amiibo a few days ago, but they were sold out so I bought a Splatoon shirt instead. Not even mad, though I do hope they restock soon.

I don't get why there have been so many "waves" in such a short time. It's left me confused as hell, and since I'm not really a collector type person and I don't play SSB, I'm at a bit of a loss as to why I should buy any more from a functionality point of view.

I'm still optimistic though as they have so much potential. Just hoping for more games that really do some interesting stuff with them

Not planning to get it. It's a bit messy IMO. If they want to do this they should make it possible to play with any game with your own AMIIBo that you've payed for. I should be able to play as yoshi in a mario or in kirby game. Otherwise I don't see the point

If they would fix the stocks and make them a bit more worth it in the games. Then yeah, amibo is pretty good for me.

Ironically, yesterday I made the decision to call quits on amiibo. Its gotten to the point here in the UK that shops are now taking advantage of it with price increases. My intention had been just to stick to 4 main series: Fire Emblem, Kid Icarus, Metroid & Legend of Zelda (with the odd outsider like Mega Man).

However, this month's wave of 4 are all part of the ones I planned to collect and whilst I have preorders with ShopTo, they raised the prices to £14.86, basically costing me £60. Despite I can afford it, I just can't warrant this purchase any more, especially as I barely use amiibo (which I am seeing more and more being used as physical keys for on-disc DLC like on Splatoon). I just don't think the figure quality warrants a £15 charge (which has since gone up to £20 on ShopTo!!! Although my preorder price still stands.) Still, with me having completionist tendencies in collections, to cancel three of these orders would force me to have to get rid of all my Zelda & Kid Icarus amiibos. Plus with Zelda U round the corner, you can bet they will be used.

Anyways, end of rant. In short, they had potential but Nintendo are using them all wrong. At the very least they should have offered cards or even DLC as alternatives, I mean what if you want the unlockable but its not worth the price or you don't want the figure?

I don't understand all the endless complaining about stock. A big reason amiibos have taken off like they have is because they're so hard to find. If they were available everywhere a lot of people wouldn't feel so rushed to get them.
Because they're so rare people line up and preorder and try to get any rate amiibo, whether they want it or not. That's the whole point of collecting. It should be special and involve effort.

I like them on a case by case basis, but I find annoying that my 3DS isn´t compatible with amiibos, and we don´t know when the NFC reader will come.... As collectibles, I love them. They are cheap and well made. Just, try to increase the stock, its been a pain trying to find Lucina and Robin!

Amiibo are worth the price if you buy them in order to have the figure, not for the extra in-game features.

I don't think amiibos would have the same appeal of it weren't for the shortages. That's part of what makes them special. I'm just waiting for when the cards come and will be used as cards in, say, a Pokemon trading card game for 3ds that uses amiibo cards that can also be used by themselves for an actual trading card game. It's coming at E3.

I could care less. It's just another example of Nintendo delivering a lackluster knockoff of something they thought was hip and current, but lucky for them them there are plenty of 'fans' that would basically buy branded cow dung from Nintendo of they could.

It's all about the hype and a quick buck, or we would never, ever be talking of stocking issues. If it was about the gameplay enhancement, they would never be out of stock, because they would be needed to play.

Given that the WiiU still has a good 2 years left in it, I'm not so worried about supply, but that depends on Nintendo re-stocking the Amiibo that I want.
The other thing that may be worth talking about is whether or not Nintendo will carry on using Amiibo on their next gen consoles. It would be shame to use them only on WiiU and 3DS games. Heck, they could even do some little mobile game using Amiibo considering that some smart phones have NFC readers on them.

@NintendoFan64 Problem #1 is probably more Nintendo's fault than it is the retailers. Nintendo needs to pay retailers more for more shelf space.

@jjmesa16 ...Okay, fair enough.

I'm not too interested in amiibos personally. For collectables, they're alright, but as methods of adding content to the game, IF they have a game to add content to and not just smash bros, I would rather just go on eshop and download whatever DLC the amiibo provides then go on a wild ebay bidding frenzy just to get ahold of one. It's just too much trouble to go through just to get a small buff in smash bros or something.. anything else they provide like unlocking characters or costumes in games, can be done with unlimited eshop DLC.

I love amiibo. .
They are great collectibles with the bonus of adding in game content.
The whole issue of stock levels and the scalpers is very frustrating, up to the point where I was all for selling my whole collection when the recent next wave of smash amiibo where available to pre order and within an hour were sold out.
The thing is I like the idea of some of the amiibo been rare, but only 1 or 2 (not 3 quarters of them Nintendo).
Any way I have a feeling Nintendo are going to announce a big game solely for amiibo at E3 just to make getting them little figurines that bit harder to bag..

The whole amiibo ordeal is a demented circus of slavering greed and consumptive idolization that's brought out the worst in both Nintendo and the players. I'm not buying into it.

I don't think the stock situation is QUITE as bad as it could be, because really, who but a harcore Nintendo fan would want a Ness or Olimar amiibo? So of course Nintendo is going to be careful not to over-produce its more niche figures. That said, the stock is still pretty bad.

I've lost just about all interest in Amiibo, but if Nintendo comes up with a Kirby line I'd be all over it.

I enjoy buying the amiibos I find, but I hate the exclusive/rare ones. I just hope that they put out either more stock or release siimilar amiibo if they become integral to a game.

Dont care about their functionality as much as I do about owning them and keeping them in excellent condition. Although the figures that arent rare, I rip open and use in game.

@Kirby_Fan_DL3 have you missed kirby king dedede and meta knight

@Dr_Corndog Took the words right out of my mouth. I don't even see myself jumping over trees for an Olimar amiibo. I mean, the truth is that some characters like WFT and Little Mac(majority of the rare amiibo) would only be semi-useful for one or two games, and that's it. Popular ones like Mario and Luigi... of course there'll be mass production for those amiibo.
That said, though, the amiibo stock could definitely be better. Quoting @NintendoFan64, "STOP DOING EXCLUSIVES!" Why should Lucario only be available in Toys 'R Us? Or Gold Mario only in Walmart? That only contributes to the shortage of amiibo.If Nintendo want to do a Skylanders-type game, or include amiibo in most of their future games, they really need to step up the production of all amiibo.

I'd really just like to get Donkey Kong and Toad, but noooooo. Those two should be common.

I was very indifferent with the whole amiibo thing as the things they did didn't interest me much and it looked sooo ridiculous to try to obtain certian amiibos.
I've now recently bought 2 amiibos (Fox and Captain Falcon) for around $20-$23 and while that is still pretty decent as both are kinda rare, I'll be holding out for Robin, Marth, Lucina and Ike as I'm not that desperate for these.

As always I want amiibo for the figurines and not their game usage. It is fun to hunt some rare amiibo and have figurines from every region.

I dont care about the cards though.

@VeeFlamesNL Let me add one in there: Why should Ness be exclusive to Gamestop!? I could already tell he'd be rare, so why would they pull that stunt!? Also, do they do exclusives in other countries? I only asked because I've seen Gamestop's websites for Australia and Italy, and they had Jigglypuff despite her being an exclusive to Target.

I would like to add that while while the likes of skylanders and infinity are plentiful in stores and Amiibo are not, the skylanders and infinity are soon discounted to get rid ..
At least with the Amiibo figures they at least hold their value if not go up in price after release, so the figures are always a sound investments

I'm only collecting the smash waves for now. Decided that once my Meta-Kinght order was cancelled and had to get him off ebay. Pac-Man was difficult to find too. So glad it is nearly over. Getting a yarn Yoshi mind as it is quirky and will probably end up as a Christmas decoration.

I imagine once the smash range is over they will announce 3 packs for some of the 49+ figures over the following year. A Kirby Pack will probably be one.

At E3 I think we will get 30th Anniversary Mario Range in 8bit form. Star Fox range announcements and they will show last of smash amiibos. Hoping for a Captain Toad amiibo too mind.

I'd say I'm handling Amiibo's just like your average fan. I'll collect one or two that I like but I'm not out to "catch em all" and I feel the support for them in game is okay. It's a toy that has some bonuses in game. People think Amiibo's are really DLC for a game and necessary to experience the game, but nothing could be farther from teh truth.

Love amiibo. They're perfect collectables, and I love having figures of all of my favorite characters, most of which would NEVER get merchandise in the USA otherwise. I've been collecting all of the amiibo besides the Super Mario versions of characters I have the Smash versions of, and it's going great so far! I'm only missing four amiibo (Villager, Little Mac, Wii Fit Trainer, and Lucario). But it has been an ordeal getting the amiibo that I do have- especially being someone with school every weekday until now (summer break). Could be a lot better or at least more organized.
The amiibo functionality has been neat so far, but it certainly could always be more. Yoshi's Wooly World is looking to have the best functionality of all so far, with every amiibo but pokémon working with it. There's yet to be a truly "jaw dropping" feature for amibo, though, and I hope Nintendo makes a game using amiibo heavily at some point. Also... seriously, we need a game to make use of the Pokémon amiibo already. Liscensing is way getting in the way of that and all the Pokémon amiibo are near useless besides aesthetic.

If Nintendo simply releases a game that's like its equivalent of Skylanders, Disney Infinity or Lego Dimensions, amiibos will instantly become pretty much the best of the "toys to life" category on the market. You'd have a dedicated Nintendo first party game that can use the figures in various cool ways, just like the other guys have, plus the added bonus of being able to use the figures in countless other games too.

Nintendo is in a position to win this battle pretty easily at this stage imo (although being able to use Lego's figures are normal Legos is very cool).

Now just give us some kind of Nintendo Land Plus with fully integrated amiibo functionality...

I'm not planning to be a collector because I don't want to waste 100+ dollars just to put them on my shelf. I'm going to buy amiibo to use them in my games, not to just let them sit there and say "I'm so glad I got Ness!"

The figurines are cool to have but they don't do much for games.

I like them, but I like plastic tat, always have.

I like that they're not necessary but can unlock cool extras across a multitude of games. I'd likely Have bought them had they just been regular figures with no functionality to be honest, so even when the Amiibo integration isn't great (hi, Rainbow Paintbrush!) it's no loss to me.

But they really need to give those who don't want to buy a figure a way of unlocking the content. I know people and frequently see people comment about how they're not getting a game because they can't get the Amiibo or don't want plastic figures but feel they're missing too much without them to make the purchase of just the game worth it.

It's a difficult balance I guess.

Plus they better announce another Smash wave! They can't go leaving out Falco, R.O.B, Duck Hunt Duo and Mr Game & Watch! Not to mention Mewtwo and Lucas and any other new characters that may come as DLC. I wouldn't be surprised either if they decided to do some of the alt skins like Alph, the Koopalings, male Wii Fit Trainer and the other Villagers. Maybe even just alternate colours. Seems a relatively easy way for them to keep the series going.

im suffering from an amiibo addiction.
i will obtain ALL smash amiibos.
i get two of the ones i wanna open.
im not crazy at all. i swear.

Sure, amiibo aren't "needed" for any of the games they're implemented in so far but there's something very wrong with hiding $35 worth of content behind a toy that is exceedingly hard to get in the first place. Outside of being cool figurines they're also on-disk dlc activators.
And really now, collectables should not be this hard to obtain while they are still being produced. Having systems crash and getting your preorder canceled isn't "fun" or "making you work"; it's a silly inconvenience that should have been resolved already.

Where's the "despicable business practice" options? They're just greedy and a plauge on Nintendo games.

I love amiibo and I dunno why but for some reason the race to get my amiibo is exciting. yes I hate scalpers but it's not just them some shops (at least here in Ireland) are only ordering in like 2 of one amiibo (If the are considered niche) If you shop around you can find bargains . I like that they are rare but can also appreciate that people are disappointed. I think it is a case that Nintendo doesn't want to end up with surplus stock eg skylanders I often see the figures for 99c (At least the old ones)

Over expensive toys I don't have a problem with. Cosmetic DLC tied to toys I don't have a problem with. Locking actual content behind these things is as bad as Day 1 DLC, and I do not support that. Splatoon was ridiculous - locking single player content behind toys on release is just not acceptable, and I will not be buying any Nintendo game that locks content behind an Amiibo.

@Jaz007 - I'd rather not see that option; it'd open my eyes to how many people on this site don't care about that stuff as long as it's from Nintendo.

I mean seriously, Day 1 DLC is one of the most abhorrent practices in the industry, and somehow when Nintendo does it everyone's biggest complaint is not being able to buy the thing because of dwindling stocks.

Jimquisition - The Splatoon straw that broke Amiibo's back

this past week meta knight in england has gone from rare to common as feck now,its a killer if you were keepin meta as a trade for a rare one cause right now his value has shot down,4 meta knights in game today and in every game store i think

The volume of figures killed any interest, I had at the start. Only have 3 and don't use them.

I went from wanting them all to only picking up the ones I'm really interested in. Going into stores and seeing the same five or six Amiibo that everyone has is annoying. Thankfully the ones I really want are also pretty common.

I've all but given up. If I find one in a store I want, great, but I'm not going even a little bit out of my way anymore.

I haven't bought any and don't feel like I'm missing out on much besides the spinner in Hyrule Warriors. I'll get excited if they release the SSB4 line of cards and somekind of sandbox or RPG that requires amiibo.

I was surprised I actually found some wave 4 amiibo. But after too many frustrating tries on getting common amiibos, I've resorted to just getting what I can easily obtain. It stinks that you can't get any features out of them because they are so rare. If they are making a devoted amiibo game they need to restock all of them otherwise it won't sell at all.

In the end I'm collecting them cause they're really nice figures in general. The unlocks that they come with are just a nice bonus.

"Tat"? What does "tat" stand for in "plastic tat"? Is that a brittish thing?

I have no need for them from a game standpoint, so I don't have any.

Still looking for Shulk...

@EarthboundBenjy Amiibo integration is rubbish when it's just being used for disc-locked dlc like in Splatoon. The way Smash Bros used it to train the amiibo up is ingenious. Amiibo needs to be used to enhance the game, not take away features and content. Developers should treat it like physical DLC.

Also, when games/amiibo become discontinued, I think the people at Nintendo should consider releasing the amiibo exclusive content to players without the needed amiibo for long-term support.

I'm in that top 4% I have no complaints about the stock levels. I've gotten every amiibo so far, in fact I got so many Marths, Lucinas and Robins I had to start giving them away lol

My position: Toys to Life is the biggest waste of money in the history of gaming. It's $25 DLC attatched to a figurine - the very definition of wasted plastic in a world where plastic itself is a slowly draining finite resource. I can't think of anything more stupid, and I can't wait until it crashes.

@Luna_110 you and me both, i want Lucina so bad and im willing to pay $20 usd (free shipping) or $25 usd ($20 usd +$5 s/h) but non of these scalpers are willing to accept my best offer so im forced to wait.

Never got a Amiibo and probably never will.

I love the figures, but don't really care about the digital content they've offered so far. I have a lot of them and have barely used them for my Wii U or New 3DS. Unfortunately, I've never seen many of the figures in-person, even when I've gone to stores at open on launch day for them. It really doesn't make any sense.

@JaxonH #humblebrag Show off! LOL J/K

Love the amiibo as figurines, but their interaction with games is weak and the stock make it look like nintendo not even care about them (which completly clash against everything else pointing out how much they actually care).

For the use in games I can understand Nintendo, they are still working in finding that sweet spot where the figures will be interesting for games without damaging those not owning them, but the stock issue is a damage to the brand. There are too many stores not having amiibo or just display barely one or two of them in a corner, mixed with Nintendo's accessories or games, while Skylanders and Infinity figures have many shelves and visibility.

I'm aware that making too many amiibo could mean to have many unsold ones, but right now the product pass unnoticed to the average customer or tease players with advertisment inviting them to try a feature they will never get access to (seriously, how many chances there are for a random customer to buy today the latest Kirby game and buy one or all of the connected amiibo? Very VERY thin if we talk about the Kirby amiibo, zero if we talk of the three togheter. Even worse, this was probably true since the day the game got released).

I really hope Nintendo is working a lot on that restocking and more production, they are clearly far from filling the demand, there is no reason for holding back (or at least I have an hard time seeing it ^_^; ).

I like them as toys moreso than content unlockers but I dont have any because the ones I've had eyes for are gone in a flash while there always seems to be stock of Mario and Luigi. If other characters were more readily available I'd be more inclined to collect some. But as it stands with stocks low and scalping high, I honestly can't bring myself to give too much of a hoot. Too much disappointment to be had trying to get the one you want and someone selling it at 3x the market value is a real turn off so in the end I might spend like 60 bucks on a fully articulated figure before that same price for an amiibo.

I honestly think Nintendo had a decent idea but the high demand and not properly sating said demand has pretty much ensured that whenever more come out the first in line are resellers and not the people who actually want to useuse and or collect these things.

@babyguess I put in work for mine though! Took a good little while to get a proper system set up in place to monitor websites efficiently.

My problem is I can't resist rare Amiibo being sold at MSRP. I've already got wave 4 pre-ordered 4 times over at 4 separate retailers in Japan and Europe, all because I have an itchy trigger finger. I need to learn how to say no! One foreign set to open and one sealed US set should be enough

The stocking situations is good enough for my taste. I'm happy about the ones I have, and I don't care for the missing ones in my collection until I get them eventually.
The gaming side, however, is somewhat weak. The broader functionality is subpar, the amiibo features in most games are very short-lived, and the creativity is hardly present at times.

Overall, I can wait. Good things come to those who wait, after all.

SPLATOOOOOOOOOON !!!!

don't care about much else at the moment...

@JaxonH I'm just giving you a hard time. Hint, I'm part of the LINE group.

"Effort is important but knowing where to put the effort is what counts most."

I usually don't care about amiibo but what they did with Splatoon was the worst case I think and felt forced to get the three pack, at least they look nice.

I just buy the ones that I think look coolest for displaying by my TV. Thankfully all four I've been interested in have been easy for me to buy. Once I get Bowser, Jr. I have no expectations of buying another amiibo. At least until some Amiibo World game gets announced...

@babyguess
Oh you're killing me here! Well you can't be Oscar, Perma, Malagu, TJ, Bizzle, cheerysweater, Port, Sinalefa, Spartacus, Treevus or William cause they're all in the US, UK or Costa Rica. And your profile says Canada.

That leaves Amber, Kyo, Kyanos (who I think is also NA), Mihn Ngo, DarkunderdoG or Benson. But you have "baby" in your name, which would lead me to believe this is Amber.

Am I right?

If major content was locked behind amiibos, then I would get irritated, so I prefer them keeping it to minor perks. I am most excited for the admittedly useless skins in Yoshi's Woolly World.

I'm interested in getting the Amiibo figures of my favorite characters more than in collecting all of them or getting them for specific games (though I do really like the Splatoon Amiibo figures). As far as in-game content, I don't think it's that bad, all things considered. You are basically paying $13 for optional DLC of varying levels of quality in a dozen games (random number; probably doesn't reflect the actual number right now), plus a figure. That same DLC from 3rd parties would probably cost twice that, and you wouldn't get a figure, or the future DLC Amiibo unlock.

I can't stand the things. They are useless, overpriced rubbish. I have actually lowered my opinion of Nintendo fans based upon these things, watching grown men & women lose their minds over them is just embarrassing. Waste of time and especially money.

@JaxonH Secret!

@babyguess

Process of elimination, I'll find out eventually can't be that many other Canadians in our group, if any. I may have to start pokin around now

@JaxonH

So many Marth, Robin and Lucina Amiibo that you're having to GIVE them away? How do I get in on this giveaway?! The Walmarts here claimed they didn't even get Robin and Lucina in stock at all. Just Pacman, Charizard and Silver Mario. >

@Garushi
Probably cause I bought em out

I take care of my inside circle of amiibo hunters. That's where my extras go. And vise versa. They take care of me. Among the group, there's usually enough to go around so everyone gets one of everything. It's like the opposite of communism- instead of a "what's yours is mine" mentality we have a "what's mine is yours" thought process.

I like them, but I still can't find the splatoon ones or the toad one, it's frustrating, I'm to the point where I wish we could just pay for the Dec the amiibo would do. I'd pay for the skin in Mario kart or the new missions in splatoon...

Honestly my hype levels on amiibo can be summed up in the fact I only ever intended to buy two in the beginning - Kirby and Pikachu - and I now have 30. Most of them have not been that difficult to obtain and I have paid scalper prices for none. I have some pretty rare ones even. But I have definitely bought into the madness and have been extremely lucky with my preorders not getting cancelled so far.

I've managed to get most of the amiibo I've wanted so far, with perhaps a lot of patience but minimal effort.
I have 23 amiibo so far (6 more pre-ordered) and in terms of who I really want I'm missing Robin, Lucina, Shulk and Pit. I know the former two are due restocks soon, hoping on the latter two!
(And damn I want that Chibi Robo amiibo).

I wanted to collect at least the Pokemon amiibo, but after importing lucario and then learning that Greninja and jigglypuff would be store exclusives I just decided to quit. Too much hassle. If I can't just walk into my local target and pick up the ones I want, no buy. Disney Infinity has been no trouble to collect and since my family loves Disney (and I love Marvel and Star Wars) we'll stick with that.

@JaxonH do you happen to have an extra Lucina amiibo i can buy from you?, im willing to pay $20 usd plus $5 usd for S/H.

I really like amiibo's alot, but I think the stock shortage is a real joke. It shouldn't be this hard to get amiibo's!! I really want them to bring out more of the splatoon amiibo 3-pack, cause my store only got ONE, what good is that?!?

@BinaryFragger
Probably because in Nintendo's case, it's always features that are obviously extras in-addition-to (they never included Fire Emblem characters as playable in completely separate IP before, and they didn't section off boards in MP10, they added a whole new mode, MK got Mii costumes never included in a past entry, Smash never had the amiibo feature before, Splatoon simply unlocks the ability to play pre-existing stages with a roller instead of Splattershot, etc etc).

Whereas in the case of most competitors, content is stripped, removed and sectioned off. Not developed as extra.

So that's why

@mjc0961 Exactly. And to make more amiibo they need new contracts, because the old ones have been fulfilled. Which takes time.

@Manaphy2007
Unfortunately I do not. I just traded my last Lucina and Robin about an hour ago for Dedede and Rosalina.

Only extra I have now is Silver Mario. You're welcome to it if you want it for MSRP, but I'm pretty sure they're still in stock at multiple retailers

@JaxonH well it was worth a shot but thanks for the reply

With limited stock, the distribution of these amiibo could have been better. Either, one of each kind of amiibo per person (and a total of x number of amiibo per person per visit, as opposed to everyone being able to get 1 of each kind and Robin/Lucina being sold to the first ~4-6 people opening day).

Or, Nintendo/retailers needs to exclusively sell these online, to ensure each household does not get more than 1 of a kind, preventing scalpers from claiming a ton.

An example is I recently heard one person was somehow able to preorder 3 Lucina from a store when that window was open. That's.... sigh.

@mjc0961 I'd say the idea of a contract and moving to other ones is more likely than not (presumed best way to be profitable for a manufacturing plant is to be producing all the time, and hence to schedule everything in advance). Sure, Nintendo's been putting out stock regularly since opening, but who's to say the original contract didn't account for all these? Their plans from the start was to create an amiibo per smash bros character. So, the original contract could have been to produce x number of mario by this month, x number of marth's by this month, etc. They may not have the flexibility to go back and ask them to produce 2x-4x the original requested/arranged number of amiibo. That said, Nintendo could've had more foresight into which characters were going to be popular (fire emblem, less mario [there are already figures of him around and about, one can only buy so many variations of a character], rosalina [she's the Elsa of Nintendo! Of course she's going to be popular, c'mon mans!]).

That said, if we were going for individual character popularity (and in-game use via amiibo dlc), it makes sense certain characters like Pit, Meta Knight, King Dedede, etc were in low supply. Since the amiibo craze took off and some people want 1 of each to complete a collection, and due to scalpers, the supply was not adequate to meet everyone's wants. They are slowly improving (quite a few more greninja and jigglypuff produced, at least compared to Robin/Lucina/other_rares). Hopefully to continue to get better.

I LOVE amiibo hunting!! It is a lot of fun to connect with members of the Nintendo community and wait in line for the excitement of getting figures. It makes me feel like a kid to collect them and display them in my house. The upside of being an adult is that you can use money to buy yourself fun stuff, the downside is not having time to play it - so Amiibo work out perfectly in my life. I bring in a "guest fighter" amiibo to my afterschool videogame club and the kids love it!

They lock too much content behind amiibos! I mean splatoon locking minigames behind amiibos for $13? That's a damn expensive dlc for some simple minigames that I want to play in queue. MK8 did it right as there isn't any content locked away just costumes and in sm4sh where you have a play partner. Yoshi WW is also a sceptical one. I was all for yarn amiiboos but when they introduced that you get an extra player for "just $13" and some costumes (which is fine) then they have gone waaaaay too far! Don't give paying customers the advantage at this high price. The stock is waaaay too much in Norway, I see tons of ness, shulk, jigglypuff etc that should be "rare" here in every store I go to.

I have been able to get some rare ones like Toad and Charizard and Wario but I don't like the fact that they are impossible to track down. I will never pay over MSRP for them though.

@I_Am_Kappa
@dragon_warrior1
On the other side of the fence, people would argue that there is not enough content (unlocked via amiibo) to justify the amiibo price, so it's a tricky thing.

Note that a large part of the price is for the figure itself. I mainly collect them for the figures which I think has better value than the digital (currently).

Ideally all content would be free and unlocked, but a good question is how the amiibo content is created. If extra time/money is spent specifically to create unlockable content (for amiibo), then it makes more sense and is less like 'locking content away to charge more', but rather having DLC/extra_content paid for by amiibo sales.

Other option, can always befriend an amiibo-collecting Nintendo fan to unlock stuff for you ;p

I really like amiibo, but the shortages are just really killing the magic for me. It feels like a stock market situation where I have to estimate which ones will be rare and which ones will be common. Take the silver mario amiibo restocked last wave for example. I'm pretty sure everyone was surprised that he was in stock more than Lucina. So, out of fear that I wouldn't get him in the future, I bought him. After snooping around the internet I found that others had the same situation where he was in stock, no where near as many others, like Lucina in Jigglypuff. It's just so, gah, so frustrating. Especially for young fans like me who don't have a steady money income to buy from scalpers.

amiibo are turning into DLC which only a small percentage of us can buy.
If I can't complete my Smash and MP10 collection I'll probably sell them all.
And why can't they make more Kirby? there hasn't been a restock in Europe so far. Same with Ness, Pac-Man, Meta Knight, Dedede, Bowser, MP10 Peach, Lucina, Robin and Marth.

As an official, yet decidedly cool, little old lady I have not yet and never will buy any of these. I supported my grandson's Skylanders addiction. I bought him his 3ds. I gave him my copy of Rune Factory 3. I have bought him a ton of games. I am getting him A Link Between Worlds for his birthday next month along with Rune Factory 4. I have give him gazillions of bells in AC:ANL.

As for collectables, for you that are into it, fine. I have collected all sorts of decorative things over the years and am at a point in my life where I am tired of clutter. I am keeping some treasures but chucking stuff left and right. It feels very cleansing in a Zen sort of way. I am tired of 'stuff'.

I want games, complete games that are playable at time of purchase. Good games, for my beloved 3ds xl.

Amiibo are a really great example of how inept and out of touch Nintendo can be as a company. Much like how baffling it is that Nintendo can see how friends and messaging works on competing consoles, and then install the slowest, clumsiest system for the same idea on the Wii U, Nintendo can look at Rosalina or Ness Amiibo prices on eBay and still go with business as usual. How is it that the company hasn't made their own, dedicated Amiibo shop site where they sell them directly to the consumer? They control the stock, they cut out retailers entirely (while still selling Amiibo at retail as well), and they charge whatever price they want for shipping. This is such a sure-fire, no doubt about it way to make money off Amiibo that only Nintendo wouldn't have done it by now. Why bother, right Reggie? Just let those scalpers continue to make three times more than you do selling the same product on eBay. Good business! Store exclusives are another sickening means of selling these toys and only alienate everyone; Rosalina is as popular a character as anyone but you designate her to be an exclusive to a store that some fans have to drive 50 miles just to have a shot at? Nintendo should be ashamed of themselves with such business practices.

It is also funny that these toys are region-free, yet Nintendo themselves cling to region lock on their video game hardware. Why aren't they concerned with people buying import Amiibo, but a JPN Fatal Frame is a no-no?

Finally, they would make a lot of friends in the "community" if they released a wave entirely of the store exclusive and previously limited quantity figures, in Mario-type numbers. Or, y'know, make these available direct from Nintendo via their website. But that makes too much sense, just keep frustrating consumers and let cutthroat nerds cash in on your product.

@skjia No it shouldn't. And why should we care if Nintendo sell enough of them or not? We are here to buy/collect amiibo and use them, not hoping nintendo sells a boatload just cause its good for their bottom-line. Why can Disney and Activision provide enough stock and Nintendo can't?
What they are doing is only helping scalpers and its getting worse with each new wave.

I don't like the idea of amiibo containing content. Especially in the Splatoon figures as I end up buying things I otherwise would not buy but I suppose that's what Nintendo want.

When amiibo are implemented well, it's really well like Yoshi's Woolly World and Smash Bros. for instance. I just got a Ness amiibo imported from Japan so while I may not use it often, I do enjoy collecting them.

I have 15 amiibo's, I think I'm done but if they make a classic wario version I'll need that, or a waluigi.

Scalpers have ruined amiibo for me, at first I thought, ohhh cool little figures to collect and they work with games but now it's just frustrating at how hard it is to get these amiibo and there's no other way to get the fun little extra content if you can't find the amiibo you're looking for.

@Technosphile
I can answer a few of those concerns, but not all.

As for selling on their store, they actually do this already. Just not in NA. Why? Idk, but the NA store has always been for extra inventory and leftover stock with a few spare components, nothing more. My guess is their store warehouse does not have the capacity for something of this magnitude. I think it would be a good investment for them to look into for the future.

As for store exclusives, I would argue that it actually makes it easier to get those Amiibos. For example, Lucina and Robin were tough to find because the allocation was spread across every retailer in the country. But many TRU locations had 20-40 Greninjas, Targets had 10-30 Jigglypuffs, etc. Ness was definitely botched, though I suspect the low inventory had something to do with the fact there are 4000 GameStop's in the country so the allocation was spread thin, coupled with the fact GameStop has been known to hold back rare items in an attempt to bundle them later with unwanted merchandise.

As for region free, this is due to the fact that a toy does not violate any national laws or ordinances, but a video game is not that simple. The subject matter and content can be absolutely fine in one country but not in another. All the time you hear about games where content had to be edited or changed for this very reason.

As for the store exclusives, they are all getting restocks is far as I know. Shulk already had a restock, and AGAIN landed in stores a few days ago. I walked into GS and bought a Shulk this Wednesday. Lucario had a restock on May 20, MetaKnight restock hit Best Buy stores 2 days ago. Ness restock releases next month in Japan (along with a restock of the rest of wave 4), and I'm sure other regions will follow. Pit has been restocked in Japan already, so has Little Mac, Falcon, MetaKnight, Marth, Ike, Rosalina, Villager, Wii Fit Trainer, and I'm sure a few others I'm forgetting. Marth and Ike have seen serious restocks across NA and EU- and many others to follow.

Right now this very moment you can order Ike and Pit from PlayAsia or MetaKnight from Amazon Germany. Marth has been up at Amazon Germany and UK for the last 24 hours as well. The restocks are coming but keep in mind they have to supply the entire planet, one region at a time. If you're too impatient waiting for US restock, you should import.

Scalpers are not the problem people think they are. There are only about 10,000 listings on eBay but there are over 12 million amiibo that have been shipped. That's a negligible percentage, maybe 0.1-1% at most factoring in multiple Amiibo per listing. I know people want to point the finger of blame because they're upset they're not getting what they want, but the fact of the matter is hot items sell out. Wii sold out and wasn't on store shelves for a good 6 months, same for PS4. Their manufacturing average is 2 million units a month. That's a very hefty supply and I imagine is pushing the upper limits of their manufacturing realities. The fact is Amiibo is just a popular item and the whole world is going crazy for them. They might be a little light on the supply side but not intentionally- 2 million a month does not strike me as intentional shortage.

And we see firsthand how quickly a "rare Amiibo" can turn into excess unwanted inventory. Look no further than Silver Mario.

If I could find them in the shops... I'd probably buy them all. I've only seen a few amiibo come back in stock on Nintendo UK... 6 months of wave releases and no restocks. It's a joke... stop making new ones until you can meet the demand for the stupid amount that are already out. It's a shame that they don't seem to be learning or care about the fanbase. Nintendo's entire business rests on a loyal fanbase and games aside Nintendo seems to be lagging behind the competition right across the board.

I stopped caring for collecting amiibo's now. I'm just buying the ones i want like Pac-Man,Game and watch and Dr.Mario if they release a daisy one i'll buy it. The other's? Nah it's tiring to get one stupid figure and especially for one if you don't get it then you may never see it again. Sad really if people want buy all of them just for the hell of it,well i won't judge.

You should have looked yesterday and today. Marth and Meta Knight were restocked on every Amazon across Europe, and were available for the better part of 24 hours. In fact you can still grab Meta Knight here

http://www.amazon.de/Nintendo-1069566-amiibo-Figur-Meta-Knight/dp/B00QGBNMW0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433634436&sr=8-1&keywords=Meta+knight+Amiibo

Great concept to make some money for Nintendo. I applaud it.

On a personal level, not for me. No interest in these kind of toys.

I was very keen to see how Nintendo would eventually implement Amiibos into their gaming environment. If Splatoon is the blueprint for the future of Amiibo and all Nintendo games then I might as well quit now.

It was indeed strange reading Nintendo fans views on DLC (which they generally hate) but yet many see nothing wrong with how Amiibos work in Splatoon, which I think is worse most DLC.

@Technosphile
Totally agree , well said. The store exclusivity deals just exacerbate the problems with scalpers. I have no problem with Amiibo as collectables or unlocking costumes etc. , but I do have a problem with them when they are locking away actual game content as with Splatoon. Nintendo should let people download the costume dlc etc through the eshop ; say a few weeks after the Amiibos release at retail. This way , if people couldn't get hold of a figure they could still have the content if important to them. Hopefully some of the issues with Amiibo will be addressed during E3.

I like amiibo for the amiibo themselves. I buy just a few of my favorite characters, and the extra content is a nice bonus. Actually, keeping the bonus content pretty insubstantial was a great move on Nintendo's part, since no one can accuse them of locking DLC behind figurines--though I see some will try, nonetheless.

How many topics are you guys going to do on this? Anyways they don't bother me, it's actually pretty damn cool to have but the fact that they are used for DLC items are stupid.

I think amiibo are worthless, overpriced hunks of plastic. I don't collect toys or figures. I don't have space. What they unlock and do, other than splatoon's, is of no interest to me. If they were five bucks and had universal use in all games then maybe I'd buy a few.

"We need to talk" is such a startling tagline,
but aside from those four words we should do just fine.
Oddly enough here in Italy, amiibo toys can be found
but due to their price tag, my collection can't take off the ground.
That said, I'm glad they don't overshadow actual game content
while providing enough on their own, so the money's well spent.
I'd be okay with Nintendo beating bootleggers at their game,
by making chip-less statues whithout our wallets feeling pain.
Please Ninty do just that, with a real-life Smash trophy hoard,
ask little enough for me to pay up and hop aboard
the whole amiibo bandwagon, on a hype train towards destiny
I can't wait to hear such news at the upcoming E3.

Yeah, the StarBomb songs cause me to rap. Sorry.

I'm just tired of seeing only the Mario crew and Zelda everywhere! I mean holy crap. I don't even see Samus, Kirby, or Link anymore. Heck, not even freaking donkey Kong! Just Mario, peach, yoshi, and Luigi. Also Zelda. Lots and lots of unwanted Zelda.

@JaxonH hey Bill Trinen, thanks for checking in.

So despite all your numbers and logic, Amiibo are infamous and synonymous with scalping and frustration. Why do you think that is? You mentioned Play-Asia, let's have a look at their general Amiibo offerings:

http://www.play-asia.com/paOScore/19/15Amiibo

Yup, there's that Pit you mentioned...for $7 more than retail, PLUS shipping. Do you understand that this is not what people want to do? They want to walk into a store, see plenty of stock, and make their purchase without paying a markup or feel like they're being ripped off. Barring that, they want to pay the retail price online and just deal with the shipping. Note also that that Pit is right above Captain Falcon, one of the "unicorns", for $34.99. Truly, a sensible option!

Also the argument that store exclusives somehow make those figures easier to obtain is so ludicrous I don't even know how to respond to it. Limiting people's options for buying something does not benefit the consumer, it forces people to converge on a business and the lucky ones get the perhaps four figures the store received, while all the poor saps who were too slow are on the outside looking in. Even those slim restocks of Shulk and MetaKnight were snapped up and are being scalped. This is not good business.

When making the comparison to Skylanders, I'm always hesitant since I am not a Skylanders collector and so I have no idea if those fans have trouble finding certain figures in the way Amiibo collectors do. But I do know one thing: when I go into stores, I see tons of Skylander stock, many different ones, and it seems like something that wouldn't be too frustrating to be into. You know what Amiibo are like at literally every retailer I visit? The same ones that were overproduced and no one cares about: Mario, Peach, Pikachu. I have even see stores put out MORE Marios. If that is Nintendo's doing and they are issuing more of figures like that, that is about as good an example as I could ever hope for of how Nintendo has no idea what is really going on.

The region aspect is just amusing because of the inherent hypocrisy. One thing is fine to import but another is not. OK, Nintendo.

SH Figuarts handles the collector's market brilliantly. They produce a figure, it sells out, and then they see that scalpers are scalping it so they nip that in the bud and announce a reissue. They don't covertly ship tiny restocks to certain retailers, they don't let people camp websites to snag all the preorders, they communicate with people in ways other than "sorry about the stock issues, but we suspect the rarity is what people like".

I'm mostly indifferent. I was really happy to get the Splatoon Amiibo, and I'm a little upset I can't get the Fire Emblem ones, but at the end of the day, meh. It's not like there's a female Robin amiibo anyway. :/

I now have 15 Amiibos, all hard-fought for. I like them for display

@Technosphile

@Technosphile
$20 is now MSRP at many retailers in Japan and Europe. Just so you know. And pit was $20 for the last two months. Apparently he sold out and a third-party is selling him for more now. But he's not hard to find and I can assure you will pop up at some other Japanese site within a week for the standard $20 no less. I would prepare to start paying $20 where you're at too because it's spreading everywhere. Shipping, well that's just a fact of life.

And the notion of exclusives being easier to get is far from ludicrous. Not the first 4 people in line, the first 20 to 40 people in line, if there even are that many people. Some Toys "R" Us had so many Greninja leftover they put them back on store shelves the next day! I was out and about the day of wave 4 launch and believe me I know exactly how many Jigglys and Ninjas a Target and TRU got. You are making assumptions based on something you know nothing about.

GRENINJA STOCK ALLOCATION FOR SPECIFIC TRU LOCATIONS

free image upload

Again, The world is a complicated place. Things are not cut and dry as I want this so make it happen. I am not defending region locking but I am trying to explain to you there is a reason for it. Surely even you can understand this. A toy does not violate any specific country's laws against what constitutes nudity, or foul language, or violence, etc. A video game does. And each country has a different rating system in place. That is why Amiibos do not follow suit with region locking. Because they don't come with a PEGI rating.

SH Figuarts is not even 1/1000 the scope, popularity, or market share of amiibo. You're comparing something that's relatively niche to one of the hottest items in the known market. What you say is a small re-issuance is in actuality tens of thousands, per region.

As for the communication, sure, I agree about that one.

EDIT: Fyi, anyone can "camp" any website. And you can believe people WILL do it for any hard to get item. But virtually every retailer in the United States has a limit of 1 per customer, a few have a 2 per customer. This was not so in the beginning, in fact it only really came into effect full force during the midst of wave 4. But this is up to the retailers, not Nintendo. Amazon even announced the time their wave 4 Amiibo were going live so everyone knew ahead of time. People had a fair shake at getting Amiibo if they truly wanted them, and the people who did get them were the ones who actually cared enough to follow the news and announcements to know when they were going live.

@hosokawasamurai

I won't lie. Jim Sterling's Toy Story-verse counterpart's amiibo collection is messed up in the head.

@Technosphile Region locking on toys is different than games by far, as it is related to unlocking content (oftentimes, neutral, such as costumes) as opposed to rating the content itself compared to a culture's values. I don't think there's any hypocrisy there at all.

I'd say S.H. Figuarts is a different case. Amiibo are better compared to with skylanders and disney infinity (similar sized, detailed, and priced figures). S.H. Figuarts tend to be in the $25-50 range, which means that less people would intend to buy them to start (the cheaper something is, the greater demand for it), and hence it'd be easier to resupply

I like the idea of Amiibo and have several of the commons (and Toad) but I think I’m done buying games that tie content to figures that I can’t get.

I enjoyed the Splatoon testfire but I’m not buying the game if I can’t get the squid-related missions.

I was looking forward to the new Fire Emblem but, after being introduced to the series with Awakening, I hate the idea of not having Lucina.

@JaxonH so answer my question. Why are Amiibo synonymous with scalping if they are so easy to find as you are trying to prove? Why is Nintendo issuing apologies about the stock if they're so easy to find? Your solution might be to purchase these figures on a foreign branch of Amazon or Play-Asia or whatever but, again, that is not something most people are interested in doing. They want to either find what they want with no hassle or extra cost in-person, or they want to find it with no hassle and minimal extra cost online. So Amiibo are more like $20 in Japan, fantastic. They are not in the US and that is all that matters to the US consumer.

We're not talking about vintage toys here, either. Its a current product line that people can still find plentiful stock of the unwanted figures from the very first wave. Its reasonable for people to want what they want for the retail price in their own country.

And you might wave off SH Figuarts reissues and while it is true that we are talking about thousands vs. millions in relation to Amiibo, the greater point you're not understanding is that Bandai recognizes a problem when they see one and fix it not only accordingly, but very well. They speak to their fanbase and make it simple for everyone to get the toy they want: a figure with something like 40 moving parts, not a plastic statue with a low-end chip in the base.

Personally, I really think Nintendo screwed up on the implementation. The RFID should have been programmed to fill out stats that were upgraded in different games. Fighting, Driving, Luck, Accuracy, etc. Then, to max out your Amiibo, you'd need to tap it in Brawl, Mario Kart, Mario Party, Splatoon, etc. Gives an impetus to buy more games to use your Amiibo in.

Instead, we have a system where you have to delete data to use a figure in more than one game that writes to the figure. Between that, and Splatoon locking content behind the figures, its really turned me off.

If I were to get one, I would have to complete the collection and get every other amiibo in existence, so I don't own a single one. I think they're a great collectible though.

I haven't bought a single one. The prerelease photos made them look great (except for Marth, obviously) but when I pick it up in the store I see a very cheap looking toy at a high price. And even if that weren't the case, I'd never be able to find all the ones I like, so why should I bother?

I will say that I like amiibo in theory.

I've been strict, so far, on which Amiibos I've bought and that's helped me not burn out on them. I got Kirby, King Dedede and Meta Knight, they're still MIB for display. Than I got the three Splatoon Amibo and they are excellent, both as figures and for the unlocks in game.
I've been able to buy all my Amibos in store easily - I'm in Australia. There were 8 Meta Knights to compare in store, so I could pick the one with the best paint apps.
When the AC cards come out I'm in trouble tho, yikes, might have to dig into my PS4 fund.

I have only bought 2 myself. Samus and Link (only one out of the collection that got opened). My wife on the other hand has managed to get every single one of them. Hardest one for her was the Villager one, which she ended up getting the Japanese version for.

Aside from just simply collecting them all for a set, they can be considered useful by the players at large. Sure you can call it on disk DLC, but it is done in a reasonable way compared to what DLC is in general. Plus, all you need is a single one for multiple games, you dont have to keep rebuying it for every game. I for one see more potential in them, only downfall thus far is the fact stock has been severely underestimated to the demand. Interested to see if Nintendo will expand on this for content or not in the future, with a more reasonable amount of stock to avoid scalpers that is.

@Technosphile
I'm not saying amiibo aren't hard to find. Some of them are. SOME. But the majority are in bountiful supply-no one likes to talk about those.

All I'm saying is that those amiibo which are rare are not completely unattainable. Sure, if a person wants to sit on their butt and expect a rare Amiibo to fall in their lap then no, they're probably not going to get one. But even a five-minute Google search could have put a person in a situation where they knew what time to go online and order their Wave 4 Amiibos. Even a five-minute Google search could have let a person know what time retailers opened in order to go physically pick one up on the morning of the 29th.

Scalpers will scalp anything. You see Final Fantasy collector editions being sold on eBay. It's not just amiibos. People act like this is the only thing that's ever been scalped before- virtually everything in the world is being scalped right now- even PT and FF15 demo codes. But people act like that's the reason they can't find an Amiibo or something. I assure you and anyone else reading this, 10,000 listings on eBay doesn't even scratch the surface of the 12 million Amiibos in the market.

Some people just seem to think it's a crime for certain Amiibo to sell out. They're producing 2 million a month-how many more do people actually think can be produced? Honest question. This is become one of the fastest selling items in recent memory- Hot item selling out is completely normal. It doesn't mean stock is being intentionally sabotaged by Nintendo, nor does it mean scalpers are buying up all the stock. It just means there's millions upon millions of been Tyndale fans who are buying these things on a worldwide scale. Naturally, when you have an item this popular, certain of them will be sure to sell out.

But we see restock after restock after restart taking place even while they're releasing the new waves. I just don't know what more people expect. I know it's frustrating to want something and not be able to obtain it with zero effort, but that's just how the world is. Of course Nintendo is going to apologize regardless- people are upset and blame them, right or wrong. And you don't keep happy customers telling them things like "Hey we're crankin out millions every month, we're doin our best here cut us a break!"

Eventually the restocks will level out the demand. Prices have already plummeted on many of the more rare amiibos. I can tell you right now Nintendo will keep reprinting and restocking these things until people quit buying them. It may take a little while but eventually it will happen

@JaxonH Don't know where you live, but I spent 40 no minutes refreshing on Amazon every second on 3 computers and never getting Robin or Lucina even with a window for release. That's after the non existent pre-order window online and in stores.

Honestly amiibo have me extremely frustrated with Nintendo. They are starting to tie it to all their titles with increasingly rare figures that even going way out of my way I can't get. If this is going to be the future of Nintendo I'm done. If Microsoft or Sony were doing this the press and fans would be trashing them.

@JaxonH You said that there's going to be a restock of Ness next month, right? Any word of that happening in America?

@MailOrderNinja

Yes, those two sold out very quickly on Amazon. That and GameStop botching Ness was probably the only two that were legitimately hard grabs. Everything else was up long enough to get one. But, Walmart preorders went live for at least half an hour for Robin and Lucina. And I got a Ness at GameStop the morning of the 29th, as well as an entire set of wave 4 at GS the day they took in-store preorders

@NintendoFan64
July 30th Ness, Robin, Lucina, PacMan, Charizard, Wario, Pit, Ike, Rosalina, MetaKnight, Marth, and a few others will release for another round in Japan. They've been taking preorders for these at all sorts of Japanese online retailers for the past month or so. Falcon, Mac, WFT, Villager, Marth, Ike, and a few others have already seen a restock in Japan and most European countries. Marth and MetaKnight being the most recent examples- they went live on every Amazon in Europe yesterday and were available until about his morning. Think MK is still up on Amazon DE.

No word on US just yet, though US restocks tend to come with a little warning. Marth got an Amazon restock and went live several times a day for the duration of about a week, he also went live on GameStop. Ike got a reprint and went live on GameStop, MetaKnight hit BestBuy shelves two days ago, Shulk got a full restock at GS and another small shipment this past Wednesday. Lucario was just restocked a week before wave 4 released.

I suspect GameStop held back Ness stock, since they never officially listed him online. And considering most locations only got a couple, I think they're planning to sell him later for a higher price or bundled with some commons. Shady ole GameStop, pfft...

I think we'll start seeing a restock of the early waves before the end of next month. I can't say for sure but we've been waiting a while for those and every other region has seen them but us.

@JaxonH Okay. I'll have to see if I can find a way to order him. Someone in the Amiibo thread in the forums uploaded a pic of how things are going in Australia, and WOW. It was nothing like here. They were actually...well...THERE. A ton of amiibos with a ton of shelf space. It looks things are slowly starting to get better, so hopefully things will get on track by the time Summer ends, and maybe I'll be able to find some of the ones I've missed.

@JaxonH I disagree. I was at work and took lunch early when GameStop announced they were preordering Lucian, Robin and the lot. They had a time slot and everything and it took the entire site down. My brother took the day off and stood in line at GameStop because he thought there would be online shenanigans and yet even as the fourth person in line they were sold out.

Target said they were putting theirs online at 7 am or so, I got up early and oh surprise they went live hours earlier and were gone in minutes.

That's all to add to the fact that we are talking about preorders. Perhaps someone needs to explain preorders to Nintendo, because you are supposed to take orders and then fill those orders. Instead they are purposely limiting stock to drive interest.

I'll agree if you didn't get Ike or Marth that was all the persons fault as one was preordering for months and one weeks. But all the latest figures? Insane.

I've only bought one amiibo and that was Samus, after that amiibo content has been down hill every since to the point of being day 1 DLC. It sickens me how people are asking Nintendo to lock more content on amiibos to the point of being half of the game, but you know, it's ok when Nintendo do physical day 1 DLC. Maybe if Nintendo actually did something good with amiibos like in SSB4, maybe they'll be getting more of my money.

@MailOrderNinja
The site did indeed crash but that was GameStop's stupid fault- it was taking 40 minutes in order for some people so obviously by the time they got to the fourth person a lot of stuff was sold out.

As for target I never believe anything ask.Target says. They also said people would only be able to buy two amiibos total, rather than two of each.

You say they are purposely limiting stock to drive interest but I say based on what evidence other than hearsay from other Internet speculation? Again, 2 million a month. The pre orders being taken are by retailers not by Nintendo. In order to take preorders first they would have to do it directly and many months ahead of time before they manufacture the product. That's not going to happen. The problem with the retailers is they were selling pre-orders before they knew their allocated stock, so they were either overselling and canceling orders or they were playing it very conservatively to avoid overselling which resulted in preorder selling out too quickly.

It does take a little effort to get the hard ones. But there are tools at peoples disposal to use. I think the retailers are scrambling trying to figure out the best system that works right now- that's why we saw GameStop announcing in-store preorders at a specific time and Amazon announcing orders online at a set time with 30 minute intervals.

And to be honest I really can't give you a good solution for finding the rare ones except to stay in the know. You can always import, and what I like to do is order an entire wave together so that it makes the shipping fees negligible. 15 bucks shipping for one Amiibo is quite a lot, but for 4-6 of them it's only a couple bucks each. I know it's not ideal but for better or worse this is just how things are right now with amiibos being such a hot item. I would recommend signing up for NowInStock at the very least. And if you're serious about finding them let me know. I can go into a little more depth on some of the methods you can use to secure preorders.

@Chaoz Curious what's wrong with day one DLC? There's never been anything wrong with Day one DLC, only day one DLC that was stripped from the original game. As long as it was developed "in addition to" for the sole purpose of Amiibo, and not sectioned out of the original game, what's the problem? I hear ppl say "day one DLC" like it's supposed to be a bad thing or something.

Amibo's are basically the same as Hu-cards from the PC engine, and the Bee-cards. Only difference is that they have an giant statue that could contain miscellaneous things inside. Again looking back at "Street Fighter II" port for the PC-Engine it features an extra big pcb ( or is that for show ). You could do the exact same thing with the PCE Hu-card/Bee-card interface basically.

Again another idea of mine, Make goofy statues that are really storage devices. Nothing new at all.

In fact an game system called "Scantron" originally was to be developed by "GBJR Toys ( formerly Shocker Toys ) " featured characters loaded on cards you would upload to the system. It was also fully 3d as well.

Looking at Nintendo's past they had the e-reader cards, along with another variant of e-reader for the Famicom that featured power-ups and characters. So this for Nintendo is unoriginal in my opinion.

@JaxonH This is not heresay or rumor: it's a fact that figures are selling out in minutes online, all except ones in bountiful supply like Mario. Nintendo keeps saying they are aware of the problem but can't come up with a solution of any kind. It's not even hard. Come up with an official site where people can order one, even if it takes months to get one, knowing that I had it lined up would work. Increase stock, flood online stores with orders so scalpers can't take advantage. Yeah, you don't want a ton of your product sitting at Wal-Mart on the shelf, but they could make them available online with absolutely zero risk.

So it stands to reason that they are absolutely doing this to drive interest and demand. You really think they care whether they get their money from real fans or scalpers out to make a quick buck on desperate collectors?

I've also read here and on other sites that the problem is even worse in the US, at least in the UK they have the official online store they can order from, we don't even have that option here. It's an absolute crap shoot where even figures nobody would typically care about, ie Wario, are nowhere to be found.

On top of that it sounds like you are part of the problem, with comments like that's probably because I got them all or that you are buying them all up for your circle of friends.

Either way you look at it either Nintendo is completely incompetent at stocking product, or they are purposely creating this situation. Since I refuse to believe that hundreds of employees with marketing degrees and intimate knowledge of the retail world are simply completely out of touch, that means that they are doing this on purpose.

@MailOrderNinja
Doesn't stand to reason they're doing anything. If your logic is that because Nintendo hasn't set up an official website to take preorders month in advance that that means they're intentionally shorting stock the argument doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Listen to the facts. The facts are, 500,000 Amiibo are being produced on a weekly basis. Amiibo are one of the hottest items in the market right now. Globally. Not just in one country or region. You have to accept the reality that really hot items are hard to keep in stock- especially at launch. You absolutely must accept this reality. Just because something is sold out and hard to find does not automatically mean it is sabotage or intentional. Was Sony intentionally shorting PS4 stock for 6 months? They knew a YEAR in advance it would be a hot item. Was Nintendo intentionally shorting Wii for 9 months? Think about it.

Scalpers are irrelevant. They have no part in the equation whatsoever. Whether there's scalpers taking advantage or not it will have negligible effect on available stock.

And let me tell you something- don't tell me I'm part of any problem. Clearly I cannot buy an entire store out of stock and that was meant to be taken as a joke. I understand you're angry and quick to point the finger at anyone you can whether it be Nintendo, scalpers or even me. That's what angry people do- they look for the first person to blame and they point the finger. I assure you the 5 Amiibos that I ordered is not the reason you cannot find any. In fact, I am part of the SOLUTION, not the problem. Because I ordered figures to help those out who were unfortunate enough to not find one! So please, don't even go there.

I know you think the only two options is that Nintendo is incompetent or intentionally shorting but I assure you there is a third option called they are cranking out half a million Amiibos a week but the entire freaking world wants them and it's just not enough to satiate demand. But I am sure you will blame someone regardless. People who don't get what they want always find somebody to blame for their problems. Just like the poor blaming the rich for their poverty despite the fact they refuse to go find a job.

I love Amiibo as a concept. I love collecting figures of characters I love, it's a bonus that they unlock neat little extras and all visually look like part of a collection (rather than a bunch of random figures from 20+ different manufacturers like most other collectibles I own that don't look like a 'set').

I have a nice little collection of only characters I really love, with characters such as Sheik, Diddy and the upcoming ZS Samus (that's preordered) being ones I would usually find more difficult to obtain merch for at all. If they ever create a Midna figure, I can happily stop buying new things and live the rest of my life in the woods. I will have completed life.

Saying that, the Amiibo bonuses are such a mixed bag to whether or not I like them.

• Mario Kart 8 or Yoshi's Woolly World are examples that I like the idea of. Little bonus costumes that don't really do anything outside of looking neat. That's a suitable little bonus and nobody really misses out on anything. Don't want the figure? Don't buy it, you're not missing out on anything!
• Splatoon? No, just no. Splatoon may give you recycled versions of the single player maps with new rules BUT that's an extra hour of fun per Amiibo, plus some armor, plus a weapon, plus up to 4 extra minigames. You're missing a lot of content in an already short game by not buying the Amiibo and since it's also a competitive online game, those extra items may also make the difference to the actual gameplay.

Amiibo should be nice little collectible figures that give me a nice bonus that doesn't make me feel like I have to buy them if I don't want to. Splatoon totally f*cked that up. I pre-ordered the boy/girl anyway since I loved their design but I know that if I didn't want them, I would still feel like I needed to buy them because of what they actually unlock.

If any other company did this sort of stuff (which they do) people would cause a sh*t storm (which they do). If Nintendo do it (which they're doing), people are likely to heavily praise them like the second coming of Christ.

Then there's the shortages. I live in the UK, so they've not hit me as hard as other countries since our supplies are somewhat better and less of our figures are 'rare'.
On the other hand, with my modest collection of 9 Amiibo, I will probably never be able to find a reasonably priced Dedede or Meta Knight to finish the set of Kirby figures. As Kirby is possibly my favorite franchise of the bunch, this really annoys me as the only way I can get them is paying a stupid price to line the pockets of scalpers, which I refuse to do.
Villager? Not for £40. Rosalina? It's stupid to even consider having her.

Want a Mario? Everybody can have a Mario! Mario everywhere! Check your cupboard, there's probably one there you didn't even know you had! Look behind you, there he is! What, you're going to the toilet? There he is having a swim!
Nintendo, Mario might be your man but honestly, not everybody gives as much of a f*ck about him. Stop printing off Mario's as though they're a cure for cancer and stick some damn Dedede's on the production line, you set of idiots.

What bugs me more is Disney Infinity. Is it as popular as Amiibo? Probably, it does span across at least 8 different console platforms as opposed to Amiibo's barely 2 (3DS barely supports it, lets be honest).
Do you want a Stitch figure? Go to the store and pick one up! Want a Vanellope? Sure thing, pal! What about a Mickey Mouse or an Aladdin? Don't worry friend, you can have one of those plus a Spiderman and a Buzz Lightyear too!

It's pretty bad when even Disney is making better moves in the gaming world than Nintendo.

@JaxonH I think that if you make arrogant or baiting comments like I bought them all or say you have so many you are just giving them away on highly sought after items you can't even preorder then you are asking for that kind of treatment.

I don't buy it has anything to do with them not being able to make enough, they are all pieces of plastic and Mario takes the same amount of time as would imagine that Ike or Ness does. Yet I can go in any retail store and buy any of the Mario lot right now. Not to mention Skylanders and Disney Infinity generally don't have this issue.

I'm not sure why you are so hell bent on defending this, probably because Nintendo can do no wrong by you, but usually when something is such a problem that almost everyone can acknowledge it and there are memes and parody songs about it that's because it's actually a problem.

Oh, and by the way, these resources you speak of, I'm signed up at 3 separate sites for notification. Usually when I get an alert the item is already gone in the seconds it takes to log on. I've put plenty of effort into hunting these on disc DLC carriers down so you can drop the whole you aren't trying hard enough thing.

I'm over it. Splatoon was the final straw. You have to buy amiibo to unlock the mini games that u play in between rounds? That my friend is ridiculous. This is content that should have been included for free.

@JaxonH
The issue with Day One DLC is asking the consumer to pay $60 upfront for the game then (Let's use Splatoon as an example) asking them to pay additional money for content that is not worth over half (or in the case of people who have to pay scalpers/import amiibo/etc. the cost of the game itself and more than likely more) of the cost of the game for content that could easily be considered part of the initial price.
Really now, are the amiibo side missions and the costumes they unlock really worth an additional $35 to unlock, or could they easily be considered side content in the game itself instead of locking them behind an expensive toy purchase?

"Scalpers are irrelevant. They have no part in the equation whatsoever. Whether there's scalpers taking advantage or not it will have negligible effect on available stock."

Are you sure people buying up multiple preorders or having their friends buy multiples of the "rare" amiibo that are already low in stock doesn't effect available stock??
The point is that none of these "rare" amiibo should be this rare in the first place, especially not at initial launch.
You can continuously cite that millions of amiibo are being shipped worldwide and yet out of those millions of amiibo places like best buy are only getting 5-10 Little Macs? Only 24 Jigglypuffs at Target (If you're lucky)? And then not restocking them after they sell out? Heavens forbid we put preorders into that equation.
Consumers don't care if they're shipping out millions, it is not enough and with Nintendo flopping about for 6-7 months about the issue consumers are going to rightfully be upset and not want to continue supporting amiibo, especially when the competition is more available and (arguably) a better choice right now.

I was excited about this, but crappy distribution and rabid scalpers ruined it. Still hoping I can get Palutena and Dark Pit and Duck Hunt Dog when they make him.

@Tao

Yes, yes it is. Its sucky that this is the case, though in Disney's defense they've been around the entertainment business much longer then Nintendo has.

@Technosphile

As a Skylander collector I can honestly say that we've had no trouble getting most of them. Three sets of Skylander games we've bought and out of all those sets I can only think of 3 that were a PitA to find in stores and online for a decent price. Anyone who thinks that Nintendo is doing right by its loyal consumers needs to get a reality check.

Why should I have to pay 40 or 50 bucks plus shipping just so me and my kid can have 1 a piece? I know scalpers scalp everything but the rate that they're doing this to amiibo is ridiculous and Nintendo has done nothing except murmur apologies instead of fixing the situation, considering how long they've been in business, considering that this isn't the first time they've ever had toys of their characters made, is baffling. We stood in line for half an hour and they were sold out by the time it was our turn.

If people weren't so desperate to own every figure no matter the cost, then scalpers wouldn't be selling them at high prices.
If there was double the stock, there'd be less sales and not more - the idea that stock is short has driven sales.

@JaxonH While they have been putting out restocks, most of them seem pretty small. I don't think they are producing millions of figures of month, per the stock situation it seems more like in the 1k/10k's, assuming they are reprinting each month (someone earlier mentioned possibility that Nintendo needed to renew/update manufacturing contract after initial amiibo production estimates were off)

I still think it's a great idea, but nobody, including Nintendo themselves, have utilized them enough. It seems the only game that uses them in a special way is Smash and I'm not a huge fan of Smash. To me Amiibo is an idea that's all or nothing with no in between. Every game utilizes them in cool, creative ways to make them must-have enhancements, or the whole thing crashes and burns. So far, it's been nothing but the latter.

And I understand how it would be fun to collect them, even if they are underutilized, but not for $13 a pop.

@MadAdam81 "If there was double the stock, there'd be less sales and not more - the idea that stock is short has driven sales."

Not necessarily, depends on how many people are buying them out of rarity as opposed to actually wanting the figure. A lot of people want to complete their collection, in which case having more stock would result in more sales. The initial rarity has driven hype and gotten more people interested in them, though

I want to love amiibo, I really do.

I'm a bit of a collector when it comes to stuff like action figures, but the whole stock issue just puts me off. In fact, it started when I couldn't find Captain Falcon in any stores around my area that carried amiibo, but he was apparently released on the east coast of the US. (I live in the pacific northwest)

I truly hope to see this issue fixed very soon, as I'm never going to buy off a scalper. I have faith in you Nintendo!

@MailOrderNinja
Why is it just because we disagree on a particular issue I automatically get labeled as always defending Nintendo, or do you always resort to slapping blanket generic labels on anyone who dares oppose your opinion? This has nothing to do with Nintendo doing right or wrong, this has to do with this particular instance and in this particular instance people are shutting all the blame on Nintendo and scalpers when the reality is they're way off base.

People cannot seem to accept the fact that popular items can and will sell out, especially when they have a global demand.

And Nintendo can do plenty of wrong, I'm just sick of people acting like this is some big conspiracy and Nintendo is only cranking out 5000 Amiibos a week or something.. They are producing a heck of a lot of these things, 70,000 per DAY in fact. Yet you say that is intentionally shorting. You say that's incompetence. Based on what? The fact that you don't like the outcome, that's all.

And I put in hard work for my Amiibo. And just like you come here to complain about not finding anything, I come here to celebrate the fact I have amiibos pouring out my nose and ears. So it's okay for you to sit here and give everyone a long lecture about how you couldn't find Amiibos, but when I tell everyone about how I can find them, that's asking to be treated wrongly?

No.

You can believe whatever you want. But perhaps you will understand one day that the reason the popular characters are in abundance is because they are popular. They're not going to overproduce niche characters. They will try to target demand the demand is something you cannot accurately predict down to a tee. Which is why we see them issuing restocks to catch up with demand rather than overproducing and losing millions of dollars with excess inventory and warehouse storage fees.

@DeltaPeng
They are actually. 2 million per month on average. They shipped 10.5 million as of a month ago. So ok, 5.25 million every 3 months. Or 1.75 million per month. Almost half a million Amiibos per week. Still basically 70,000 per day.

I know it's hard to believe but there really is a lot of people who are buying these things. And not just 1, but at least 2 on average- one to keep sealed and one to open. That right there effectively slashes the supply in half.

@Bagels
I understand it's not enough. No argument there. My only point is that the reason it's not enough is not because Nintendo is intentionally shorting stock, and I believe the sheer volume they are producing speaks for itself and should be acknowledged.

As for Splatoon, I think the lack of content at launch is a separate issue. The whole premise of a amiibo is that it unlocks content in games. So people should not be criticizing amiibo for doing exactly that. Yes, Splatoon was light on launch content, but, at least it had reasonable Amiibo content in its favor. Arguing the missions aren't wirth $35 is a little unfair- after all the missions were already in the game to begin with. All it does is has you replay them with a roller. That's it. And of course that alone is not worth $35 but Amiibo is not sold on the premise of one games worth of content. It's sold as a collectible item which works across multiple game, Splatoon being just one of many.

Absolutely people buying 2 for themselves affects supply. But everyone has that right to do so. I don't think buying for others affect supply because if it wasn't you buying it and then transferring it to your friends it would just be somebody else buying it who didn't have them. Either way they go to someone who didn't have them.

I would say that ideally, stock should not be that short. But to say that as if it had some moral implication- as if someone is "wrong" for stock being short, is to do a disservice in my opinion.

"Only 24 Jigglypuffs at Target". Do you realize how many of those retailers are in this country? Or how many retailers they have to ship to on this continent? Worldwide? That's a pretty good allotment considering how many different figures they're making. It would be different if they only had 10 figures because then they could make more of each one but their line includes dozens upon dozens of Amiibo now. THAT hurts their ability to keep up with demand.

I'm not going to buy anymore ambiios until they make a Dr. Mario ambiio.

@DeltaPeng

***Not sure where your comment went, maybe it was deleted, anyways here's a link
Not speculation.

Fact.

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2015/05/nintendo_has_shipped_105_million_amiibo_worldwide

@JaxonH Alright, a nitpick, but first if you break down the math it's closer to 50k a day, 10.5M divided by 7 months, divided by ~30 days a month.

I can agree that they have produced a lot of amiibo total so far, 10.5M of any product is a good amount. So yes, Nintendo is creating a good supply, though demand is still high.

But whether the stock issue will be improved soon (such that rare amiibos are no longer rare) and whether Nintendo is still actively producing amiibo at this moment, is more unknown. Whether they are "actually /currently creating 50k amiibo units a day", is not a fact, it's still speculation, because it assumes (per my math above and your ~70k number) that it only took from the amiibo starting day (Nov 2014) till now to create all 10.5M amiibo units.

Most likely Nintendo did not start production of amiibo the moment or day before they began selling amiibo, more likely the amiibo production line started months in advance (prior to its release on Nov 2014).

That said, how long the process takes to create x amount of amiibo, such that amiibo will become plentiful and not rare, we don't know unless someone from Nintendo reveals that info. It's also dependent on if Nintendo wishes to make the rarer amiibo more plentiful (characters that they didn't anticipate would get much attention or use in games as amiibo), as opposed to just printing new ones or more versions of popular characters. It is unlikely that all the lesser characters will become as plentiful as the more common ones, unless Nintendo sees a large demand for them. A bad stock decision would be, as you pointed out, to have too many of a character people don't want taking up shelf/storage/retail space, and costing them money in that way.

Since amiibo have become popular, though, they should be able to take more risks in releasing more of the rare ones, as have been seen by the small restocks of late. Could use more risk-taking for the rarer characters though, which is what I think a lot of the fans are wanting (i.e. more Rosalina, robin, lucina, etc). Lesser characters, like King Dedede, people want him mainly for collections, but I'd say he has less general appeal as opposed to characters like Rosalina and Jigglypuff (whom buyers may buy even if not familiar with the character/series, because they look cool [imo]).

@DeltaPeng

6 months, not 7. That article is a month old. In fact, it's more like 4.5 months. We don't know the final count of wind and tender will stop shipping but we do know they are in fact restocking all rare Amiibo- here's one example right here of a rare Amiibo that has been restocked so much that it no longer sells out and has been available for two days now- MetaKnight (even Marth lasted a full day)

http://www.amazon.de/Nintendo-1069566-amiibo-Figur-Meta-Knight/dp/B00QGBNMW0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433656649&sr=8-1&keywords=Meta+knight+Amiibo

I noticed a number of people here posting comments have asserted that Nintendo simply makes apologies but doesn't address the situation- here is what Iwata-San said according to the article:

"Iwata-san reinforced that Nintendo is doing all that it can to keep supply up. Factors being considered for which amiibo will receive prioritized production are how quickly the amiibo sold out, how integral it is to a particular game, and how high demand for it has been among retailers and consumers. "

@JaxonH
I think you mean 5.5 months, if we start from mid-November.

Point being is that they didn't decide to produce and ship amiibo overnight, so the actual start time for amiibo was pre-Nov 2014. Again, most likely months in advance. So, claiming Nintendo is making 70k amiibo units a day is speculation/estimation (though potentially inaccurate since we don't know true production start date), and not a fact/provable without inside information or a statement from Nintendo that's along the lines of 'this is how long amiibo have been in production, here are how many units we made during this time, the rate we produced amiibo have been consistent, and we are continuing to create the amiibo at this same rate today".

But perhaps that's a nitpick.

Your point being, which I agree with, is that Nintendo is working to produce more amiibo, as seen from restocks and the general high number of amiibo created so far.

And I'm about signing off, I have Splatoon to play and maybe a comic to draw.

For a less stressful amiibo experience, I recommend not trying to 'buy/get them all', and mainly focusing on the ones you really want to get. With hope, the rare amiibo people really want will be / become stocked well.

Good luck on your amiibo hunts everyone, but don't stress yourselves out too much over it.

@DeltaPeng
Yes, 5.5 months. Thank you.

You're right, i'm sure it took many months ahead of release to get levels of stock adequate for stores. And keep in mind before release they had no idea (neither did we) whether Amiibo would be a roaring success, a complete flop, or somewhere in the middle. So I wouldn't expect them to manufacture extremely high levels of stock before launch not knowing how they're going to sell.

And look, I don't think Nintendo is perfect here. But considering the total volume of output, the fact all rare Amiibos are being restocked across the globe (and I'm sure they will receive multiple restocks because one time isn't going to do it), coupled with the fact they have pressured retailers to limit quantiy per customer, from what I see Nintendo is doing everything they can to remedy the situation. I know it's not a popular opinion- people who are upset they can't find what they want are naturally going to look for someone to point the finger at- but I believe its the truth.

I know it's little consolation to those unable to find what they want, and I know it doesn't fix the situation, but acknowledging that no one individual or entity is to blame here is important. This is just what happens when you have millions of fans clamoring for a universally flaming hot product and buying multiples per character.

I do totally agree with you though- at the rate they're selling, I would love to see them crank up production on the more rare characters. With that said, I understand there is a fine line between unsatiated demand and excess overstock.

@JaxonH Agreed, they're good points for fans to take note of. While the initial demand was unknown, I think Nintendo realizes there is money to be made in restocking/producing more amiibo. Now all that's left is to wait and see how the situation goes

@DeltaPeng

I have a hunch Nintendo is going to keep restocking these until people stop buying them. Oh, it won't happen overnight but I do think they will issue a restock for past rare amiibos every couple months until they stop selling out.

Maybe it will happen faster than we think though- if Meta Knight still hasn't sold out in 48 hours on Amazon DE, Pit restock pre orders were up on YesAsia and PlayAsia for a MONTH before finally selling out, Ike has been up on PlayAsia for the restock preorders for days, and even Marth was available on Amazon UK from yesterday all the way until this morning (which is a lifetime when it comes to an amiibo), then maybe we really are at the cusp of seeing demand filled. At least in EU and JP. The U.S. is a whole different beas thought, accounting for two thirds of all of amiibo sales in the entire world.

Maybe I would be more positive about Amiibo if I had more money/space, but as it stands they are far to expensive and don't do much substantial game-wise. Yet at the same time I hate it that there is stuff in the games you can't reach without Amiibo. It's the modern version of a paywall. When other companies did it they where scoffed at. But now that Nintendo does the same (but masked with figurines): "Sure, no problem".

I wished it stopped, but I know it won't. E3 will be a gigantic Amiibo fest (yuck)!!

@Tempistryke True, but the entertainment business isn't the 'video game NFC chip collectible figure' business. For the amount of time they've both been in business, who's been doing it longer is irrelevant at this point since the modern market is entirely different from the market even just a decade ago.

Disney hadn't done something like this before Disney Infinity was released. Skylanders was the only thing on the market at the time, so it was very much still new ground for them. It was still yet to be judged whether Skylanders was a one off success or a possible new avenue for video games.

By the time Nintendo came along it had two successful brands to take note of in very similar markets to Amiibo. They could learn from their success and avoid any of their initial mistakes. They could take what those things did and expand upon them, as well as mimic marketing techniques to make Amiibo turn into a success.

They didn't though. They learned nothing. Amiibo's initial launch sold a lot of figures but ultimately it was a disaster, with lack of stock everywhere which in a lot of cases still hasn't been resolved. Everybody saw the demand but Nintendo, with scalpers picking up as many figures as they can causing the shortages to become worse and figures to become hard to get hold of. Stores took advantage of the low stock and high demand by quickly raising the prices.

It's been over 6 months since release and they've STILL not learned from these mistakes. They've had two other franchises to learn from as well as over 6 months to learn from and to resolve the issues. 6 months later and they still don't know how to efficiently stock enough damn Dedede's so that everybody who wants a Dedede can have a Dedede without paying £50 to a scalper with 50 Dedede's because he has the free time to sit at a computer all day waiting for pre-orders to pop up whilst I'm at work, earning the money to buy the Dedede that I can't have. You see this, what I have in my hand? You know what it is? It's not a Dedede, that's for sure, because Nintendon't know how to manufacture enough of a product that's obviously in high demand.

The only reason Amiibo are popular as they are now is the shortages around them. I really don't think people would give as much of a damn otherwise. In fact, considering most of what I hear about amiibo is their shortages and speculation of rarity rather than their uses or how much somebody just loves having that one special Amiibo of their favorite character, I have no doubt that less people would care if every figure was easily available.

At the end of the day, this is either some very good marketing by Nintendo to make a product seem more special than it actually is or they just really screwed up. Either way, they've f*cked up as far as I'm concerned. Yes, their sales are high but they could be higher, and a lot of fans just aren't happy. Some have just said "f*ck it" and pretend they don't exist (such a fantastic marketing technique, eh?). Customer loyalty and satisfaction is way more profitable than a quick buck on a passing trend.

So at the end of the day, Disney do what Nintendon't.

Shine's worn off for me. Was gonna get them all but stopped when realised how difficult / expensive would be.
My local Asda and Game don't even bother stocking them any more. I don't understand the stock difficulties.
At least I got Wario!

Do the stock issues bother me? Yes.

Will I quit collecting them for that reason? Of course not! I love amiibo, and I have no plans to quit collecting them any time soon. I've already got my five mains (Shulk, Ness, Zelda, Captain Falcon, and Greninja) and many other characters, and I plan on continuing to get the Smash characters who I like. I'm also excited to see what new amiibo lines will be produced, so long as stock is maintained.

@JaxonH
If Nintendo isn't intentionally holding back stock and they're not just incompetent then what are they doing?
Ever since it became apparent that certain amiibo might be "discontinued" (some only two weeks after being released) Nintendo made wishy washy statements regarding restocks and frequently dodged the issue. With conflicting reports coming in left and right in addition to the port strikes being a nice scapegoat for like....5 days; It has only been within recent months that they made direct statements and apologized for the issues.

Even then, they don't know when the stock issues are going to be resolved and have essentially handed the issue with retailers who have to try and solve it themselves. The lack of communication, backpeddling and this being on going for 6-7 months shows that they really, really aren't being too optimistic about fixing it.
And why would they?
Even with the low stock and disgruntlement of the internet they sell out like hotcakes. Even if scalpers are taking advantage of their fanbase they still rake in the money at the end of the day, so it honestly wouldn't be too far fetched to believe Nintendo would engage in restricting stock for hype...again.

"I don't think buying for others affect supply because if it wasn't you buying it and then transferring it to your friends it would just be somebody else buying it who didn't have them."

I'm not sure if you're implying some sort of "scalpers buy amiibo then they go poof into thin air via magic" here because the obvious problem is that the "somebody else buying it" in your situation are scalpers who are driving the already low supply of amiibo even lower by reselling them for x4+ the retail price which many people do not want to pay.

24 Jigglypuffs per Target (assuming, I know many got wayyyy less than that) looks good on paper....until you realize 20 out of the 24 were sold minutes after the store opens. And that's being gracious and assuming a large amount weren't picked up by scalpers who were sitting at the store 2 hours in advance.
When you take into account how many people actually shop at these retailers 24 with NO chance of restock is nothing. I don't understand the fear of overstocking certain characters when I frequently go into stores and see nothing but Mario and Peach sitting there for days at a time or literal holes in the shelves.

I haven't gotten around to picking any amiibo up - hopefully i'll get around to doing that soon

I feel like the Smash series in particular are too rushed - if they had announced just one wave and made enough supply and then announced a new wave 4-5 months later then some of the rarer amiibo would probably easier to find - also increase the stock on many of the elusive amiibo other than Mario,Link,Pikachu and whatever other amiibo that can be easily found in stores

and i can't say im a fan of store exclusive amiibo, especially if the store has no plans of restocking them (im looking at you, Target w/ Rosalina amiibo) or don't have enough stock from the start (Wave 4 Ness as example) - they're store exclusive, not limited edition - theres a major difference

But i do like how stores have been cracking down on scalpers by limiting amiibo, wish they'd done that from the beginning there would probably be more in stock if that had been done sooner

I do like amiibo, but it's irritating finding some of the rare/elusive amiibo at a decent price....i feel like im just going to import most of them with how little stock some of them have in the U.S.

@Bagels

How do you know scalpers will be the ones to get them otherwise? And even if they do, the number of scalpers are far and few between- not nearly enough to make a difference considering the sheer volume of Amiibos manufactured.

And why is anyone who sits at a store in advance automatically a scalper? You do realize most people waiting in line are fans and collectors, right? It's like you've been brainwashed to think that the vast majority of people buying these things are scalpers. No. For every 1000 fans and collectors there might be 1 scalper. And it doesn't matter how fast they sold out after the store opened because I guarantee you anyone who wanted one was in line and everyone in line up to the 24th person would've got one.

And I'm not sure where you get no chance of restock from because thus far every single rare character has in fact got a restock and/or will have future restocks coming. So... Idk what you're taking about. They just restocked Lucario, Marth, Ike and Meta Knight, and twice for Shulk. So tell me again why there's no chance for Jiggly restock?

And 24 per store is pretty good considering they also sold online preorders. Like I said with Toys "R" Us they had so many leftover they had to restock the shelves the next day and they refused to sell to anyone who had bought one previously.

Mario and Peach are known to sell. On the regular. Every time you walk into a store it's a new Mario and a new Peach. Because those items are known to sell on a regular basis. But the more niche characters are not guaranteed to do so. Once those hit the tip of demand, they'll end up just sitting and collecting dust.

And lastly, you asked what is Nintendo doing then? They're manufacturing Amiibo and selling them as fast as they can! What else would they be doing? They're trying to supply a product that the entire planet is clamoring for. A product did not even 70,000 a day can satisfy demand. I'm not sure if you have any concept or grasp of exactly how much that truly is, but I work in manufacturing and I can tell you right now 70,000 of anything in 24 hours is a LOT.

@JaxonH It's not that you can find them, it's the tone and the direction of your statements that is off putting. Quite simply the way you put it seems very much like nee ner nee ner I got one and you didn't. To me most of your posts read like: I don't have any problems getting Amiibo so obviously there isn't a problem, when clearly there is. When someone says they had an issue you claim they didn't, they aren't trying hard enough or that Nintendo is trying as hard as they can: when even if they are producing the number you say a day (which again I find hard to believe) they aren't sharing any relevant information with fans getting more frustrated by the wave other than vague apologies and promises to restock figures that have never been acted on. When were the Marth restocks coming that were promised months ago? I still don't see them in stores, online or anywhere for that matter and no further mention was made of them.

Either way Amiibo has completely dirtied what I used to love about Nintendo, the things that I began to shy away from the other two big game consoles because of. It used to be, before all this Amiibo nonsense, that things like the Splatoon challenges, costumes being restricted etc would have simply been cool unlocks in a game. Now Nintendo is chopping off pieces of pre-existing content, whether it's debatable on the value of that content or not, and selling it back to us at a significant price.

The sad part is I was ok with this at one point, I thought that having a cool Nintendo figure was the most appealing part, especially since many of these characters would never usually see the light of day in the US in figure form. I was sure up front that I would have to pre-order to get the rare ones I really wanted, like the Fire Emblem ones, but thought that would be easy enough.

If I'd only known. Now with the utter fiasco Amiibo have become, with the future to seem to be more and more of the dang things, it's just about time to write off the company as a whole in my book until they are done with this money grubbing nonsense. If Xbox sold DLC for something locking a challenge mode away behind some $13 Master Chief figure that you could never find people would be crying for their heads. It's only because it's Nintendo that they get a free pass with so many fans.

@MailOrderNinja
Ok I was gloating a little bit. But for me, someone who has no problems finding them, I assure you that my gloating bothers you no more than me having to endure countless posts complaining about stock levels.

Hey if you want to stop playing Nintendo games because you can't find a toy, do what you gotta do. Doesn't bother me any. Though I will say I think it's under nonsense to let something as trivial as a toy that unlocks extras, key word EXTRAS, stop you from enjoying playing fun video game.

If MS made a $13 toy that gave you access to additional content that was not part of the main game I don't think anybody would have a problem with it. Why would anyone have a problem with additional content? Ever? And that's all amiibo has ever been. Additional content. It's not like they stripped 150cc out of Mario Kart and locked it behind an Amiibo. If that was the case then I would totally understand where you're coming from. But we're talking about a toy that nobody needs- it's a luxury, nothing more, that unlocks luxury content.

EDIT: And I am curious as to why you only feel it's moneygrubbing when you can't find an Amiibo you want. Of course it's moneygrubbing- they're running a business- all videogames are moneygrubbing. Every for-profit company on this planet is moneygrubbing. That's how they stay in business- by grabbing for money. Here they have offered consumers a product that appeals to them and they are selling accordingly. There's nothing wrong with that- and it's nobody's fault that they became so popular so quickly. They came up with a new idea, they launched the product, it blew up with popularity, and now they're pumping out as many as they can as fast as they can to sell as many as they can. I know it sucks not to get one but is it possible to be upset without getting angry at Nintendo for the fact that these Amiibo are popular?

Because it's a good thing they're selling out and are really popular. Nintendo has been struggling lately and the profits from this line of toys can help them stay in the black and continue making the games that we all love. Contrary to your statement Nintendo has a history of being extremely generous- offering DLC and season passes that nearly double the content of certain games, and for only 10 or $15! Often times they give away DLC for free, even supporting the less popular games that didn't sell well... that's work ethic right there. Supporting the Wii U with just 10 million sales in 2.5 years is an act of not moneygrubbing, but selfless work ethic. Sony stopped making games for my Vita a while ago. That's what normal companies do when they have a product that doesn't sell. But Nintendo, true to their customers, is supporting the system the entire generation for better or worse. So where you see a money grubbing company, I see a kind and generous, selfless company. And I think Amiibo is good for all of us. I don't think it's a crime for them to make a popular toy, and I just don't think it's their fault that the whole world is going nuts for them and is buying them by the drove.

Idk, I'm going to keep on collecting these Amiibo because I really enjoy it and I enjoy the extra content they provide, even though I don't take advantage of it that often. But these are still just collectible toys- they mean nothing to me in comparison to the value of playing Nintendo games, which to me are the funnest games ever made.

They're okay, just wished they made millions more...or make a law to waterboard scalpers

On paper they're a great idea - little Nintendo figures that add something to your games.
But in reality - it means spending a lot for very little.

I think they're in a bit of a predicament with amiibo - they say they don't want to lock content behind them, yet they do. I think honestly, the best thing they could do is to actually make a Skylanders type game where you scan in your amiibo to play as that character. Otherwise they don't feel unified or justified, to me at least.

As always, I'd rather they were investing their time and energy into what they do best - video games. Amiibo, to me, feel like artificial padding between game droughts. - But if all you lot are happy to buy them - I'm happy it keeps Nintendo where they want to be. Better than going 3rd party.

Amiibos are not video games. And as far as collectible figurines go, they're not particularly well made. So I don't really care about them.

I'm nearly done with amiibo. All I'm hoping to get now are Yarn Yoshi and Duck Hunt Duo, but I'm probably not going to get them due to stock issues.

On the other hand, I'd be all over indie amiibo, even just as cards.

I believe the concept of Amiibo is great and has been well implemented, but apart from the unexceptable stock issues, what also frustrates is how Nintendo advertises and markets Amiibo but you can't get hold of the damn things. It's like they're teasing and messing with us.

@RegalSin
Except that its not. The Bee/Hu-cards are ROM carts, they're basically giant non-rewritable SD cards. NFC is radio based.

You can't do "exactly the same thing" with them, just by virtue of NFC being read/re-writable. Cart swapping you could do, like for bigger games, unlocking content though I seriously doubt it. Unlockable/hidden content wasn't even a thing back then, nevermind having physical keys. The latter didn't become a thing untill Monster Rancher came out on the PS1 in 1997, although its not quite the same as what Amiibo does either.

I got Zelda with my Wal-Mart New 3DS/Game/amiibo bundle and just picked up Link today to go with her. I might pick up Ganondorf in September. I like the Fire Emblem ones, but good luck with that. In the end, I like the way they look on my desk more than the way that any one game uses them. SSB uses them the best, but it doesn't do anything that makes the point of amiibo undeniably clear. Almost every single other use of amiibo either unlocks a power up or on-disk DLC of varying levels of pointlessness.

Still waiting for the wow moment that most Nintendo gimmicks eventually provide. The balance board had Wii Fit Plus. The Wii wheel was amazing when I first used it until I needed more control in 150cc. Even the 3D on the 3DS made perfect sense in Kid Icarus: Uprising. The gamepad probably does something in some game besides inventory busywork that I haven't heard of. Amiibo still has no wow moment for me. Nor do I get why on-disk DLC is cool and okay when Nintendo does it and when it requires an impossible-to-get plastic accessory that costs more than the average, equivalent piece of on-disk, day 1 DLC.

@AyeHaley My point is that the reason they are even so popular is because of the rarity of them. If amiibos were everywhere people wouldn't rush out to get them. No one goes crazy trying to get skylanders or infinity stuff because they know it'll be there when they decide to get it. I'm not for or against it. Simply pointing out that it does make finding a rare amiibo more gratifying. And it's a sign of our self entitled age that people think everything they want should be theirs right now.

I'm making progress on getting the ones I want. I started with Samus within a week or two of Smash Bros. releasing, then didn't touch any more until the Super Mario line launched, of which I got Luigi. Mega Man came next, as I figured it wouldn't be long before his price began to skyrocket (heck, I was surprised that he still carried a normal price online, even then; he'd been out for a little bit).

Knowing what the Splatoon 3-pack amiibo's fate would be, I waited outside a local GameStop a couple of hours prior to their opening to get that along with picking up my Splatoon preorder. Luckily, my assumption was right, as that store only received one 3-pack in that shipment.

My fiancé got me Sonic while getting a new phone plan at Best Buy, which of course meant that I had to get Pac-Man, so as to complete the third-party characters. Just bought Pac-Man at a mall GameStop, yesterday afternoon. I'm keeping those three in their boxes.

I suddenly want Kirby. Perhaps it's Pac-Man's silly, round body that makes me want him, but when Kirby was readily available in places like Walmart, I kept passing him over, as I found his sitting pose to be a bit dull. He seems to hover around twenty bucks online - not the worst, but maybe it still counts as scalping.

I haven't seen a single instance where amiibo have been well implemented in-game- and as far as collectibles go, there are far nicer figures and models to celebrate your interest in a game. I suppose I can see why a die-hard fan of a series might pick up a figure for a game that very little merch was ever made for.

But I still have no idea how these have proven so popular. From the looks of this site and the comments, there seems to be a dedicated fanbase but I've yet to understand why.

My only explanation worries me a little. It seems to be a market driven by the sorts of desperate need to complete sets and compete with other buyers to establish their fan status - or the pleasure that comes from impulse consumption.

I know 'people buy things because it makes them feel good' is a fair enough reason but I still find it a little disturbing how dedicated people seem to be to acquiring them.

Seeing people clammering over 'Silver Mario' & 'Gold Mario' repaints boggles my mind.

I have no amiibos! I don't want any.

I know its frustrating when you can't get hold of things you would want to but the harsh reality is if Nintendo made an abundance of every Amiibo figure then only the few would buy them. Its been commonplace in the music industry for years now. If you make a record that isn't a very limited edition then nobody buys it as they feel no pressure and instead spend their money on something that will soon sell out. The demand for these Amiibos is fueled by their rarity. I own 12. If they were all permanently available forever, I'd probably only own 2. Sorry folks, but thats capitalism.

If it's any indication, everyone always seems very excited and approving of maintaining a personal amiibo collection whenever the subject arises, especially store employees and others still who don't even come off as the Nintendo type. People who otherwise scoff at the preference of Wii U over PlayStation or XBox have excitedly chatted with me about amiibo.

Every time I've picked one up, I end up in a fairly lengthy conversation about which characters we have and which we want, sometimes going into interesting stories about or difficulties with obtaining a certain one. Of course I know that the collect-'em-all guys certainly exist in abundance, but most people with whom I've personally spoken are like me, and only want a decent, sizeable, but by no means complete collection of certain beloved characters. So far, they, like me, have done decently at getting their personal collections together, though of course I won't pretend it's perfect.

Sure, I'd like to have Marth and Little Mac, so I guess I could get all dramatic and claim to have been "burned" by Nintendo or whomever in this regard, but the point is, it's getting more people talking about Nintendo. Stock issues or not, amiibo are unquestionably a buzz-generator.

Heck, even just getting accessories for the toys which are themselves accessories gets people talking. I got the amiibo-themed 1-Up mushroom case for my lady (she uses it to store makeup, by the way; I actually display my amiibo and thus see no point in using such cases for their intended purpose), and even slapping that on the counter prompted a conversation when the clerk grinned and asked, "So which ones do you have, now?"

I'm afraid I'm one of those people who just doesn't see the attraction of little plastic figures. I like games, not toys. The only reason I would even consider buying one is if it unlocked some unmissable game content, and as far as I can tell, that's not the case.

I'm not interested in smash brothers which seemed to be one of the main games for amiibo and though the stock levels and price were fine where I live, the only character I was interested in (Samus) seemed too plasticky to me. I wouldn't mind having a Samus figure on my desk at work but I'd want something a bit more expensive looking with better materials.

I'm glad they don't hold important DLC though because I'm not a toy collector.

I'm one of those people that just buy the ones in the store. I originally wanted just the Zelda-themed ones, but the collector bug bit me. However, I refuse to pay over MSRP for figures that still hasn't been used in a really neat way yet. Training computer players to fight in Smash is fun, but there really needs to be more than just acting as unlocks. Something that ties them together just like Smash does. Then I wouldn't feel burned out over the freaking things. They do look nice on my bookshelf, though.

still waiting for the amiibo adapter

Locking content and gear behind them in splatoon was a big mistake and has tarnished the game for me a bit.
You feel you're missing out on a fair chunk of content if you don't have all of them but the cost of all three is prohibitive. That's even if you could get them at the intended RRP.
The amiibo content could be offered separately, a amiibo card pack perhaps? But then the game has been criticised for the initial outlay in some places so perhaps that could make it worse.

The Splatoon special edition heist was the last straw, not buying anymore amiibo until Lucina and Robin are easily available at a reasonable price.

I promised myself I wouldn't buy any unless they made a R.O.B. amiibo. Still no R.O.B.? Oops , I have 6 amiibo already....

It has become a joke I used to get a Nintendo email preferences order purchase etc etc then no email no pressure order nothing I emailed Nintendo to get a emotionless relply what about loyal customers, then I staterted to get emails again telling about a 3pm per order at 3 pm on the dot sold out how strange Nintendo ??? All Amiibo I am not bitter I bought them from Game may be a few pound more expensive but I got them on the day delivered and they know how to look after a loyal customer (so far).

Quite honestly, the whole thing is embarrassing. In the beginning, I had very high hopes. Nintendo was a toy maker not that long ago, so I was excited to see how they would integrate them into video games. Even with the amiibos I have, I still feel like my purchases aren't justified. I do believe a "toy box" game is coming in the future, but I'll be disappointed if nothing is announced at E3.

Then we get to the stock problems, and that's where the real embarrassment lies. Different regions have various degrees of problems, but I'm telling you, NA is an absolute nightmare. I cannot properly relay my utter disappointment. Every store I walk into has the same amiibos:

Mario
Luigi
Peach
Bowser (who is still my favorite one)
Link
Zelda
All of the wasteful space hogs (Mario Party lineup - except Toad)

Then sometimes you will see
Sonic
Pac-Man
Toon Link
DK
Diddy Kong (but honestly, I haven't seen him around too much anymore)
Pikachu

That's it. The others don't exist. The worst is that none of the ones mentioned are new, except Sonic and Pac-Man (they must make extra of the third party figures).

The worst is that, I went to GameStop on the launch day of wave 4. They barely got anything. Pac-Man and Silver Mario had adequate supplies. Having said that, they had 1 Splatoon pack, 4 of the individuals and 1 Wario. NOTHING ELSE. Not even Ness, who is an exclusive to one store. How is it possible to not have something on launch day?

Now I know there have been some people on here who are very vocal about, "just wait, it'll get better." Need I remind them that Nintend's own words were, "we'll try to restock previously sold out amiibos." What does that even mean?! What kind of solution am I supposed to take from that? Even when Marth supposedly got restocked (I say supposedly, because I sure as hell didn't see him anywhere, and if anything his price got worse on Amazon), Nintendo made it sound like it was our fault for being lazy. Saying in their Direct, "If you missed out the first time, make sure you take advantage of him this time around."

These shouldn't be that hard to find. I should be able to walk into a store and be able to buy these for at least the first two weeks of release. The whole thing is laughable really. I don't understand why Nintendo can't just slow down, and make more adequate supplies, rather then pumping out absurdly low amounts of other characters, when the others clearly have too much demand. Nintendo clearly doesn't want my money.

I vowed to collect amiibo from the moment they were announced.
Shortages caused by greedy scalpers at the start were infuriating. Now? I don't care so much.
I buy what I can, might go on ebay once in a while, buy a cheap figure, then wait for the restocks to obtain what I missed.

I am not busting my gut to get them.

@JaxonH "And I put in hard work for my Amiibo. And just like you come here to complain about not finding anything, I come here to celebrate the fact I have amiibos pouring out my nose and ears. So it's okay for you to sit here and give everyone a long lecture about how you couldn't find Amiibos, but when I tell everyone about how I can find them, that's asking to be treated wrongly?"

I greatly respect you for saying this, and it makes me happy for you. You should be allowed to say how happy you are that you're getting them even if no one else is. Saying you're happy when everyone else is upset is a lot better than coming to complain when everyone else is happy, and we get a lot of that in other articles.

@Grumblevolcano

"...not buying anymore amiibo until Lucina and Robin are easily available at a reasonable price."

I'm quite certain you should retire from amiibo collecting then. Nintendo clearly doesn't want us to have Fire Emblem characters.

I only wanted three in the first wave Link, Kirby, and Samus. I got both Link and Kirby without any trouble but Samus was quite the obstacle. My mom luckily found the last Samus at a Target. I didn't want to get wrapped up on amiibo collecting after that but of course during Nintendo's direct that showed off Splatoon they announced amiibo's. Since Splatoon was a game that I knew from day one that I wanted it, the amiibo's where a must have. To be honest the amount of content they provide if you do have all three sure gives you a bang for your buck. The most content any amiibo gives to a game.

I decided to try and get the three pack as I really loved the look of the green squid. Gamestop was my first option but got screwed over when they didn't do pre-orders online only in store. Next was Best Buy, I didn't even try to attempt at going there. I wasn't paying attention when Target started their pre-orders and lost out on that chance. Luckily for me I was online when Walmart started their pre-orders, although it probably wouldn't have matter as they lasted for 2 days if I remember correctly before their website started fluctuating between sold-out and available. Either way I got the three pack and I'm done with amiibo's, I don't like the roller coaster ride that you have to endure. The midnight release, the small supply, high demand, the scalpers, etc I don't like any of it. I got the amiibo's I wanted the most so I'm good.

Got Lucina and Greninja yesterday (had to pay scalper to get them, but they are NA versions in pristine condition). Only missing Jiggly, Captain Falcon, Meta Knight, Shulk (for obvious reasons, stupid exclusives). The amount of money I spent is obscene, but I'm optimistic that the collection is worth (i.e. would sell one day) more than I spent.

Then again, it might be a fad just like Beanie Babies where the market crashes as soon as demand goes down. These are mass produced after all. There have to be many thousands of the rare figures, right? I hope Nintendo releases all of the amiibo in affordable card format, so I can actually use the rare ones.

I love amiibo, but I could care less about what they do in-game; that's just an added bonus. I buy them for the figures themselves, and let's be honest here, most, if not all of us, buy them for that same reason. We try to hide it behind "But they do cool stuff in games", but we'd be snapping 'em up even if they didn't do a thing.

I pity the parents who must shell out for the garbage.

I only buy the Amiibos who's functionality I can use on more than one game. The Fire Emblem figs in particular are a huge slap in the face since they arguably provide the most in-game benefits and are all among he most rare. When FE If comes out there had better be some kind of FE combo pack like Splatoon had.

@mr_nihilism I own Danky Kawnd.

i did found some amiibo in my local store but i was disappointed about the amiibo that i like is very rare and too pricey that in local store. my only amiibo is yoshi(my favourite) and i need more amiibo so my yoshi amiibo will not be lonely or something that that

@PanurgeJr I mostly agree, but that was a fair argument 6 months ago. It is not today. I didn't have that much of a hard time tracking down Marth and Ike, but despite having preordered Lucina and Robin, I still don't have them, and potentially I will never get them ... so for some reason, the situation might not only have stagnated, but maybe actually gotten worse (at least in some regions and with some amiiboo).
So ... while I do understand how they made conservative estimates about the demand for e.g. the aforementioned Marth and Ike FE-based amiiboo, I do NOT understand why they made the same mistake again with Lucina and Robin - maybe even worse of the mark then before at that, actuallyOo
Mostly, we are talking good old plastic toys here, and I'm having a hard time believing that manufacturing could not have been ramped up within the span of about half a year or so, should the decision have been made. Maybe I'm wrong about it, I never worked in manufacturing, but half a year is not nothing.
I don't get that feeling that NIntendo addressed the stock shortage issue in any shape or form whatsoever, which frankly puts me off quite a bit and makes me loath any further investment :-/

@JaxonH I'm sorry to say, but I think you are looking at the old Nintendo and not the new. Now that they know amiibo sell well and that people will bite on this silliness it's just escalated. We went from the most pointless use in Smash brothers to physically locking playable characters away behind impossible to find DLC: I will never find or be able to play as Lucina or Robin in a game I bought, partly to do just that (unless I want to be triple MSRP) If I wasn't one of the very few who got a hold of the Squid amiibo than I would never unlock the Kraken Armor OR get to play through single player in a completely different way.

Not because I didn't want to buy them, not because I don't read sites everyday to keep up with them, not because I wasn't in the right place at the right time: because of stock shortages that Nintendo has proven they have no interest in fixing. Make no mistake, if I knew that they WOULD restock these than I could just wait: but they've made absolutely no attempts to do so and only half hearted apologies.

You are absolutely right that there is a hypocrisy to my statements about Amiibo, but I've always felt this way even as they collected them. I hated the idea of what Nintendo was doing, thought it meant ill portents for the future, but loved having them sitting on my shelf so much that the unlockables seemed secondary. If I wanted a cool figure and it unlocked something in my game whatever. Did I still think it was on disc DLC? Yep. I hate the Toys To Life business, but at least the other competitors are available. It's not just that I think they are overpriced and they are starting to lock more and more behind Amiibo, but you can't even find them to boot.

I hope you are right Jaxon. I hope that this E3 they'll announce a plan to restock and that we don't see a parade of Amiibos locking content that Nintendo would have included on a disc just a year ago. I hope so, but I don't think that is where this is going.

So no, I'm not thinking about not supporting Nintendo any longer strictly because of a toy. I'm thinking about not supporting Nintendo because the Nintendo I loved, the Nintendo that stayed away from shady tactics like free to play, pay to win games (Pokemon Match Three), expensive on disc playable characters locked away (Codename Steam) or an entire challenge mode that extended the length of a short game along with premium gear that actually affects gameplay (Splatoon). I don't know if your a completionist, but stuff like always seeing a blank spot where I could have costumes in Mario Kart, always seeing those blank spaces on the bottom of Codename Steam is enough to make me not want to bother with trying to get any on that game at all.

Either way there isn't a point of having this debate I suppose, I've seen you argue for Amiibo like it's mighty defender since the moment they were announced and nothing I say is going to convince you that I'm not a spoiled baby crying because I can't get something. But I'm a grown man with two children and a full time job and I can't spend all day on the internet waiting for a 5 minute or 5 second time to preorder something that I shouldn't even buy just so I can enjoy Nintendo games to the fullest.

@MailOrderNinja
Okay I see what you're saying. I guess I just have a different perspective. I can totally understand why you would be disappointed that you can't play as Lucina or Robin, or get the Kraken armor. And I don't blame you for that. But while it may be disappointing, those are features that were never intended to be part of the main game, and regardless of how cool they are, they are extras in the main games are perfectly enjoyable without them. Not to say you don't have a right to be disappointed about not finding them, because I would be too.

And yes, there have been some changes with Nintendo including the use of free to play, DLC, etc. But the company has to survive somehow. They had to do something and in this day and age these tactics are almost required. Note their reluctance to do so, and even after they did so they made sure to do it in a generous and well meaning way. I mean let's face it is far is free to play goes, Nintendo's choice of games and value rules the roost. And if you're going to not play video games by publishers who employ these tactics you'll be hard-pressed to play any video games at all.

In-game implementation is too weak. They were marketed as being compatible across multiple games, but except for Smash all they do is unlock stuff that is either just a little bonus (like a costume) or content that is somewhat dodgily not provided as part of the base game (as in Splatoon). So basically, amiibo for me are a set of collectible figures that don't provide me anything much in game, in which case I'll pass because I don't really like figures, or they are locking content away that I think should have been part of the original game, in which case I see them as a way of Nintendo scalping money from consumers. That might not necessarily mean I won't purchase, but I am aware of the mercenary nature of such a business practice. It may be a way for Nintendo to remain competitive, given the problems with third party devs, but it's the game that counts for me, not the supposed kudos that is is implied by owning rare amiibo. And whether Nintendo is operating wittingly or not, stock shortages are increasing the hype and demand for amiibo so I do not expect them to remedy the situation quickly as that would be to the detriment of the whole concept and saleability of amiibo.

It is blowing my mind how invested timewise some here are with the hunt for these toys. Hours on their computers stalking sites, gynormous posts one one side or the other, rationalizations in defense, anger at the difficulty...

Is this gaming now?

The whole Amiibo thing just has me confused. I'm not sure the general consumer has any idea what they actually do, what games each figure are really useful for and why we actually need them. In a sense, it's like the Wii U has been all along.

I pretty much have all of the Amiibo I want save for a few hard to get ones. I do think the fuctionality of them in games could be better and with any luck there will be an Amiibo-centric game announced at this year's E3, since little things like power ups in certain games isn't exactly what I had in mind when I thought about their potential uses.

@K8sMum Unfortunately, gaming seems to be descending into an era of commercialisation that doesn't provide a simple game that's a complete experience from first purchase, but also requires some kind of gimmick to unlock a full experience - amiibo, dlc, ar cards, online passes, tons of toys-to-life etc. I think there's a wider movement of concern behind the amiibo issues/scandal. Thank goodness for indies who develop well-costed and complete games so that everyone knows where they stand form the beginning!

I've given up trying to get a complete set, and now just go for the figures that interest me. Cancelled a few pre-orders as I didn't really care about the characters. Not a fan of people who buy two, one to keep boxed and one to use, as that's one that hopefully could be used by someone else (but probably will be scalped.)

I think there needs to be a game that really makes use of them for something, but I wonder if Nintendo fear about the stock situation making it harder for customers to get the figures at retail price and not eBay Rosalina prices.

@JaxonH I don't think I could have hoped for a more reasonable conclusion to our discussion. I see it from your perspective, your not wrong in many of your statements and I could see why posts like mine could be frustrating for you. I guess I'm just grasping hard at yesterday and Nintendo seemed like the last reasonable bastion in those regards.

Ironically enough if I saw a Lucina or Robin today, even with all my disgust, I would snap them up so quick my wallet's metaphorical head would spin.

To me, amiibo are mainly only nice to have when they are used effectively in a game. Though there are certain ones that I will buy regardless of its use simply because I am a fan of the character it represents. Like my Shulk amiibo which finally arrived about a week ago. It's nice seeing a bunch of your favorite characters lined up on a bookshelf neatly.

@MailOrderNinja
I tell you what- message me at the end of July. I still have a couple JP version Lucina and Robins on the way when the restock hits Japan (July 30th I believe?). They were $20 which is standard MSRP. And you'd have to cover shipping (should be less than $5 total for both). But if you want them, they're yours.

On the subject of usage of Amiibo features I feel really disappointed that Nintendo haven't made more effort with updates for existing WiiU software. Why isn't Warioware, DK Tropical Freeze, Windwaker HD, Nintendoland, or Mario3D World compatible with Amiibo? Nintendo must be sitting on thousands of unsold physical copies of these inhouse developed and published games and the more reason they could give late adopters to pick up a copy surely the better? It seems to me they would sooner forget about these games rather than continue to promote and support their work. Would it really take that much effort to release a basic but fun patch like the hide and seek feature in Captain Toad?

They're cool as a collectible. It's great that certain characters who aren't so mainstream like Mario and Link have been given figures. I think there could be more interesting ways to make use of them with games though. Unlocking costumes is cool but I'd like to see more writable uses like Smash. As for stock? I've not had major trouble getting hold of the ones I want. If I was going for the whole collection I might struggle with each wave but picking and choosing has meant I've gotten all my faves so far on launch.

@Hordak you are absolutely right. We do not need any Wii or Wii-U. The GCN could have had an attachment for the Wii-Stick, or Wii-motes. It is funnier the Wii_U basically have the intention of bringing this stuff out along with the IR-reader that is on the top of the GBC.

Nintendo is pulling out all the stops on everything in order to gain consumers. Probably in response to the fact that people do not need the Wii-U at all and realize this many times over with the Wii.

Gimmick after gimmick seems to be Nintendo's game. First release one gimmick, then another, then repeat, and finally something new. Keep em starving and hoping for more, show corporate people over the dev-team. Make it look like one person made the Nintendo 64( Hide the fact that westerners related to SGI designed it ). Give them all-stars, and celebrities ( to celebrate over who is not god ) who can never die. Make the game and animation world one. Blah blah marketing.

In fact imagine all the college hedge funds being donated to Nintendo thanks to their selfish actions.

@Zombie_Barioth

The Hu-cards/Bee-cards are the same thing in general wether you like it or not. Just make an statue with an giant PCB. Zomgsh.
The fact that it is radio makes no difference asides it is an cheaply mass produced radio device. Maybe leftover parts of the wavebird wireless.

@JaxonH That is very cool of you and I absolutely will take you up on that offer.

And that's the crux of Amiibos. Everything I've said I deeply feel but I also love the franchises and characters so much that I really like having figures from my favorite series. That's why they almost instantly sell out and people get upset. Nintendo fans are some of the most passionate fans you will find.

I still like my amiibo, but I am certainly a collector of the figures for the figures themselves, not their use in the game. their use in game is largely a joke.

If all were available for MSRP, I would have one of each in the smash line (no thanks super Mario line, except toad b/c he's new, and peach for my daughter). All Nintendo has done is cost themselves money.

At first I thought Nintendo was caught off guard, and maybe ramping up production later on isn't as easy (tho I have seen restocks of sonic for instance popping up). It also may be that some characters are just not profitable to make, so we wont see them again (ala the super-limited ones that are very detailed). If Nintendo wants to "fix" amiibo to me, they just need to fix stock, and it would be wise to have it infinity-style stocked by Black Friday this year. Then again, it's them not making money, so that is there problem.

@MailOrderNinja
Indeed they are. I almost cancelled these JP restock Lucinas and Robins because everyone in my group has them already, and US versions at that. But I'd rather they go to someone who really wants them.

I'm not even buying Splatoon because of the locked on-disc content behind these amiibo. When i buy a game (any game), i want the option to at least be able to get the full game, without parts of the game being behind a paywall in the form of (very expensive!!!) toys. No way am i paying 3 x 15 euro's for these little figurines just to unlock a bunch of costumes and challenges, which easily could be sold as day1-DLC (an equally dispicable sales tactic, but at least everyone has the option of paying for the in-game content they want, instead of being forced to buy the dlc AND the expensive toys to get the complete game).
What makes it worse is the fact that the amiibo are sold out everywhere just a WEEK (or a few days?) after release...!

What makes it even worse (for me at least) is Nintendo's reaction: 'oh but it is fun to hunt for hard/impossible-to-find amiibo'. Does ANYONE here enjoy the hours browsing the internet or travelling around town to find the amiibo you want, and paying at least 3 times what the toys are worth? I sure don't!

Nintendo has lost much respect from me these days...

Also, “We Need to Talk About amiibo” sounds like something said by the spouse of someone who just paid a scalper $80 each for a bunch $13 figures.

I have a few amiibo and I've gotten enjoyment out of them in my games and also just from having them. That being said though, their use in games in general seems to be really hit or miss. The functionality with Super Smash Bros. can be fun for a while, but they eventually become unfair due to the stat buffs they receive. Mario Kart 8 and Yoshi's Wooly World are probably the best uses for amiibo, and Mario Party 10 and Splatoon seem to be crossing the line with "disc locked content".

The amiibo stock situation is ridiculous though. I tried giving Nintendo the benefit of the doubt early on, but we are now over half a year into amiibo production. Excuses and apologies without any call to action aren't good enough anymore.

The only real problem I have with amiibo is when the amiibo needed is rare. It took forever to find a Splatoon 3 pack, but I mostly mean Code Name STEAM. I think the content locked by amiibo is fairly justifiable too. I already had several Mario amiibo, so when Mario Party came out the amiibo party was a nice extra. I also don't understand the complaints about that mode, as only one amiibo is needed to access it.

I still say the best implementation of amiibo was Smash Bros. That was really cool.

I'm not too interested based of the fact I have to buy the game and then buy a small amount of extra content. Although I'm excited to see the quality has gotten a lot better on the figures and maybe one day I'll pick up one or two for my game collection, but right now it's not really what I'm looking for. I just want to be able to buy a game and have it ready to play without too much fuss.

I am a big fan of amiibo AND the content they unlock. However like many I'm becoming frustrated by the stock issues. I do understand how manufacturing works so I understand that it is slightly out of their control (as the earlier waves if not the entire line were likely signed into contract last year sometime) but I wish they would stop the exclusives and space out the releases so that when they release reruns it is less of a scramble. I would also love for Nintendo to open some sort of online shop in NA to make them easier to obtain.

@deltapeng Nintendo has to make an option to people who want content and not some piece of plastic. Why aren't they giving these content as DLC? The persons who want toys get free DLC included in most of their games from Nintendo and those who want the content (like the splatoon minigames and costumes) can pay maybe $5 for the content

@PanurgeJr Exactly. Also, I think a lot of people think it is Nintendo that actually produces the amiibo. The company they gave the contract to, can be just as much to blame as Nintendo, maybe more so. Perhaps they are not able to produce the numbers they thought they could, and as my learned friend @PanurgeJr said, changing from producing one amiibo to another, is not an easy process.

You could argue that, as soon as Nintendo realised there were problems with the numbers being produced, they should have looked around for another company, or given the contract to a different company. But then you fall into "broken contract" territory. It is frustrating, and some shops/online stores are trying to make a killing by selling the more rare amiibo at overly inflated prices. I am sure that Nintendo wants to get this sorted as quickly as we do. As long as amiibo are out of stock, Nintendo is losing revenue.

Nintendo back to their 90s stock shortage tricks.

In Europe they call this price fixing.

@JaxonH you said: "Just like the poor blaming the rich for their poverty despite the fact they refuse to go find a job."

You then went on to berate someone for making blanket statements.

Smh.

@k8sMum
Actually no, I didn't. I was specifically referring to only those individuals who blame others for their problems, not every poor person in the world. If a person is poor yet refuses to work, and blames those who have for their problems, then yes I absolutely was talking about that individual. But not anyone else

Anyone have a ness that I'll trade for a marth.

I couldn't care less about amiibo, but it makes me pissed when they push it as hard as they do and put shitty paywalls in games like Splatoon for on-disc DLC. It's absolutely stupid, but hey it's okay when Nintendo does these things because they're Nintendo.

Amiibo are ripoffs meant to take advantage of people with low intillect that don't understand the worth of money. These people believe they will be worth something in the future, but in reality they are only worth anything right now and they will have the same fate as Beanie Babies. They are also taking content out of games that already lack content, like Splatoon, and are charging outrageous prices for it. It's $30 to get a few pieces of the best looking armor and the other 4 or 5 arcade minigames to play while waiting for matches. That's disrespectful to the people that payed $60 for an online only multiplayer game with very little content that in a few years will be dead and worth nothing and eventually will have its servers shut down.
Sure Splatoon is a very fun game, but $60 is a ripoff, and charging $30 more for some of the good content they took out of the game to sell extra is just disgusting and greedy. When you buy this crap it effects everyone else and screws gaming up for us all. Just like supporting DLC and casual games did.

@VortexTraveller I think you've hit the nail on the head here. Amiibos are a great idea but limited stock is a HUGE issue despite what sone people may think.

@RegalSin
They really aren't, and no offense, but all you're doing is proving you don't know what you're talking about. NFC utilizes electromagnetic induction between a set of antennas. Its based off radio-frequency identification. Ever seen those microchips for pets? That's basically what it is. Its definitely not new.

There's no PCB involved, the whole point is the ability to unobtrusively hide it in objects such as cards to store and share data, like with electronic transit passes if you've ever used one. You can't do that with Hu/Bee-cards.

https://www.google.com/search?q=NFC+tags&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=IQp1Vd_FK4moogSqxIGAAw&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAw&biw=1360&bih=655
That's most likely what's inside the Amiibo, an NFC tag.

hOPEFULLY nINTENDO WILL UNVEIL THEIR dISNEY iNFINITY/sKYLANDERS GAME TO GO ALONG WITH THEIR TOYS AT E3.

I don't really care for Amiibo and for me it's probably because I haven't found a game that makes good use of them I don't want to buy a $12-$13 figurine just to unlock a costume for my Mii in MK or something dumb like that because that's usually what Amiibo do. The fact that scalpers are buying them up and Nintendo doesn't put out many Amiibo especially the ones that are from lesser known franchises makes me want them even less.

@I_Am_Kappa Well, I can't really speak to the issue officially as I am not part of Nintendo, you can recommend that idea (to sell amiibo unlocked content as DLC apart from amiibo) to them, but they are not 'required' to do anything (sorry, I tend to be pretty literal).

They have made mention of amiibo cards (which I assume may be only read-only) which are cheaper, which may be the solution you are looking for (no figure and hence cheaper and mainly focuses on the digital content). We'll have to see on details, whenever they come out.

As to whether they 'should' make amiibo content available as paid DLC, I can see multiple sides to it. They'd make some more sales that way (on digital content only), but would it outweigh the money they could make if they continued to sell only amiibo figures (and amiibo cards)? There is a 'charm' that comes with having content unlocked by the figures, maybe primarily for kids, similar to the 'magic' of having a skylanders/DI figurine bring up that character in-game, which may be lost if the content was available outside the figures.

In my eyes, the digital unlock via amiibo is already pretty light compared to Disney Infinity and Skylanders. I don't know if Nintendo would bother having a DLC unlock only option to get extra costumes from MK8 [unless the similar thing to DLC (outside of amiibo), the Smash bros mii fighters costumes, sold like crazy]. The exception would be Splatoon amiibo unlocks since they unlock heftier content, but the question comes back to, would Nintendo get more profit via selling the digital content alone (as opposed to with figures)? The other (personal) solution, would be to have a friend (with Splatoon amiibo) come and do the unlocks for you, in which case you'd only need one set of Splatoon amiibo per group of amiibo-collecting / Splatoon-owning friends.

If you do not approve (of the amount of content in Splatoon without amiibo), you could wait and not purchase the game until it is in the price range that you feel the content is worth, 'speaking with your wallet' to affect their sales numbers, as Nintendo is a business and will aim to make/maximize a profit in whatever they do (and for their shareholders). Or, you could adamantly not buy splatoon amiibo (if you are primarily looking for DLC unlock) and either wait for the price to reduce, wait for an option for it to be unlocked via some DLC payment option (if it happens), or befriend or use a friend's splatoon amiibo to unlock the content in your game (or in other games, like MK8). If you know an avid amiibo collector, it should not be hard for them to unlock a fair number of the content/costumes (assuming they do not keep the amiibo boxed up, but you get the gist).

I want to buy the Splatoon 3 pack for a sane price. (Then get a digital copy of the game).

I won't pay £75 for the Amiibo (Or buy the incomplete game).

@MailOrderNinja @DeltaPeng

Just so you guys know, Olimar and Dr Mario are up on Amazon DE for pre order

http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B00XPL1DTS?ie=UTF8&camp=3206&creative=21426&creativeASIN=B00XPL1DTS&linkCode=shr&tag=aminew03-21&qid=1433763544&sr=8-1&keywords=olimar

My family really like them and we would probably buy more if we could find them. I've said it before, but I refuse to buy them overpriced online so we're at the mercy of being at the right place at the right time, or just getting lucky. Speaking of being lucky, we went to Toys R Us on Saturday night and bought 1 Splatoon girl and a Charizard...we passed on a Wario, Toad, & Pacman. I'm regretting not purchasing the Toad and Pacman but I don't like that version of Wario very much.

This problem of not finding Amiibos is all Nintendo's fault and the crazy stories only full the craze!

I'm done with these stupid things.

An increasing amount of content is being locked behind Amiibo paywalls in games, so you have to pay extra to unlock the content already on a disk that you already paid for. So, the same problem as locking DLC on disks. But Amiibos are notoriously difficult to find, so that content just stays locked.

No good stand-alone free download to compliment the figures.

And the unnecessary difficulty in finding many of the damn things.

Nope. This is a collectible that will not be getting any more money from me.

Done until they're more useable. They are compatible with just a few things and most of which do barely anything. Kirby Amiibo is VERY useful in Kirby & Rainbow Curse imo, but he only does 1 little thing, albeit helpful, just not doing much. I bet people are going to go nuts trying to find their real Yarn Yoshi Amiibos only to have it do one tiny little thing in the game. Also maybe it's because I live in LA and there's plenty of places to buy them, but I rarely have issues finding "rare" ones when they're released, it'll be a few weeks into a new cycle and I'll still be able to find some. People are saying they can't find Ness, Pacman or the Splatoon ones but I got Pacman & Squid Boy yesterday, someone got Ness ahead of me (nbd didnt want him anyway) and they had a couple Girl Squids left as well. Wario & Toon Link are ALL Fry's in Burbank, CA has basically, like a wall of them and I noticed people saying they can't find those. I walked into Target days after the Rosalina fiasco and they still had 5 of them. But of course the old "rare" ones are long since extinct. Point is I dont have issues finding them until much later than the rest.
People can knock it all they want, I still find having a small figurine of some of my favorite characters who don't have barely, if any at all in the way of collectables, finally getting something with them on it. Like Wii Fit Trainer, lets take a look at how much Wii Fit Trainer collectables they probably have, close to ZERO Im sure haha So now I have a mini statue of her, that's kinda cool imo. I enjoy Wii Fit U, so my one little ode to the series is her Amiibo.

@Zombie_Barioth now your being an cry baby now. Okay great they use similar technology for farm animals. Okay great you can read and write to the damn thing. Dude, you just will not admit it is the same idea of having changeable cards for different usages.

About CD's and monster Rancher. The sad part is that Monster Rancher also had an great concept......... but seriously; who cares if I know what I am talking about. The same ideas was already done to death. I could take an Hu-card, or Bee-card and stick it into an slot and it would come up with an code. I could take an CD and come up with code. I could take an hidden image inside radio waves and comes up with code. I could assemble an bunch of images to make something as well. I mean oh great lets play hide and go seek instead of solve each others problems. That is what selfish below the belt people do in life.

I am not some crazy over protective person who is paranoid because they do not believe in an higher power and fear everything around them, or believe they are less then human.

Not every profession needs to be the same profession. Your not going to get anywhere by knowing everything in the entire world.

Your being one of those people who really wants something and pretends to be neutral and then insult everybody or anything because it does not benefits you.

Next your going to start ranting about Blu-ray and DOL-Discs and stating how magical they are.

All they have to do is simply make more of them. And by more, I mean ACTUALLY MORE. 2-3 Marths per store is not enough considering that they're probably coming in a full pallet of Peach and Super Mario amiibos. Just focus on the new waves and make what there wasn't enough of because those will definitely NOT be at risk of staying unsold on shelves.

Note, some wave 4 amiibo appear to be re-available on Gamestop in the US, like the Splatoon amiibo

@RegalSin
You call me a cry baby, meanwhile, your the one getting all bent out of shape. Ad hominems are fun, aren't they?

You claim its been done to death, when really, few have done it until Skylanders. You're arguing that they could do the same thing, not that they have.You know what that sounds like, don't you? You're also cherry-picking just the one feature of the NFC figures, so you're either claiming it can do all, or dismissing everything but. Either way, its a poor argument. Either it can "do the exact same thing" or it can't.

Can you put code on a Hu-card? Sure, doesn't mean you'll be able to get the game and system to handle scanning it. There's likely a reason nobody has tried it until the PS1. Space, the cost of the carts and memory, and the way the system works are all probable explanations. In other words, the technology wasn't there yet, or it just wasn't practical.

Nintendo make Amiibos, oh and they also make games.

Take the new 'Yoshi's Woolly World' will we genuinely get full game with added game play from the toy or will Nintendo hold back on some of the extras that would have been included if Amiibos did not exist?

I know someone who purchased the Captain Toad toy and what a rip off that was.

I just don't understand why Nintendo can't make more of them?

It's simple make more so everyone can buy them it's hardly rocket science..

I enjoyed them early on. I actually collect some semi-hard to find collectibles, so the idea that some would be more rare than others didn't bother me at first (that is often part of the fun for me with other collectibles). The situation has worn down my enthusiasm, however. After the Ness debacle I gave up on Amiibos. The mediocre/poor quality of the figures, low value relative to other figures at the same price, and ridiculous stock shortages combined to push me out of Amiibos.

Welcome to toy collecting, people. It's not like Nintendo is the first company to do this, Hasbro ' s been pulling it for years.

I could easily sum up my opinion of Amiibo in the simple word "No". But instead I'll go ahead and clarify why I hate Amiibo and all that they stand for:
They are NOT collectibles. They are expensive-as-hell DLC in disguise. Sure, they are advertised as collectibles, and I don't mind that at all. Infact, I would love to see collectibles from franchises I love, but I don't want to be forced to purchase an Amiibo to use a character in a game. Due to the nature of games, the character (lets just use the new Intelligent Systems IP, Code Name: S.T.E.A.M.) is already programmed into the game, and thus locked behind a paywall named "Amiibo". It is the exact same thing as DLC, only it is limited to a physical release with LIMITED stock.

I am not a conspiracy theorist and I do not typically complain about dlc, digital software and so on. I also do not feel a need to have everything as a physical thing, just to prove that I own it.
But Amiibo is a curse to gaming. Normally you'd pay what, 5 euro and you could play some dlc character they made for the lulz or included as a tribute to another franchise. Fine with me. I am not overly interested in the character, so I'd never bother with collecting figurines of it and other merch, so I'll just buy the dlc for it and play it from time to time. OH WAIT. New pricing: 30 euro. Oh, and I HAVE to track down the figurine of it. I also have to carry the figurine with me at all times if I wish to use the DLC character.

See my issue with Amiibo now?

Amiibos as fun collectibles with random funny functions within games is fine. But when it starts limiting you in some way by not having it, I draw the line.

@Fidu As far as I'm concerned levels and challenges and such shouldn't be locked at all. Amiibo should be ADDING to our favorite games rather than taking away.

@starmarx39 I do agree, but no matter what they do with them, it can (and will) be regarded as locked content.

Unless of course they're patched in as add-on content after release. Like the later waves of Sm4sh Amiibo, or if they patched out say, 3D world or Scribblenauts.

@Zombie_Barioth your argument is poor. You make it seem like Amiibo is this wonderful wiliwonker invention that you must have.

Look there have been tons of statue or over sized key devices that utilize some sorta technology. Next your going say these statues will show emotion based on the usage of them.

It is not original in fact Blizzia mentions about the idea of carrying around the character.

@Blizzia You are right these things are kinda questionable but they are there in terms of an childish manor. Again in Japan they have tons of USB key figures as well as floppy disks that have some sorta figure on it. In China ( or some related area ) they have an football game that scans the code of the card for the character in order for it to be used.

Personally I love the Hu-cards and the idea of having credit-card characters being sold in stores that you have to insert into an device to play. That makes them collectable like holographic cards and they could hold miles and miles of computer data ( miles as in an CD that could hold Xabytes ).

In fact what makes the Amibo kinda backfires is that Nintendo was making Gameboy cartridges for less money then Amiibo figures. So your really getting and downgraded Gameboy cartridge ( which have tons of different kinds of technology attached to them, including an Fish-finder ( an real tool ) camera, radio, mp3-player, and solar panel, vibrating as well, including wireless phone, and two-way radio.

I mean it is amazing to think about the various kinds gameboy cartridges have uses that could even surpass the N64.

The Amiibo is to the Gameboy cartridges is to the Hu-Cards. All of them have the same ability but with the Amiibo your getting an finely sculpted figure.

The extra content is just icing. It is the same with the E-reader and extra content and mini-games from the scan-cards. What I hate about the e-reader is how they removed it from the NDS, and 3DS line-up.
When they bring back E-reader that is when I will invest in an 3DS Nintendo system.

@RegalSin
No its not, and I'm not, you don't seem to understand what I'm getting at.

Your comparing two similar devices and claiming they do the exact same thing when they in-fact don't. They may share one common ability or trait, but that doesn't make them the same. Thave they're own specific purpose and limitations. By your logic, fish, birds, and amphibians are the exact same things, because they all lay eggs. Does that make sense to you? Are birds is to fish is to amphibians?

Let me make this perfectly clear, I'm not saying anything about Amiibo is original. What I AM saying is the way NFC figures (not just Amiibo) bring the various technologies together is unique. Those Gameboy cartridges you mentioned for example, have never had all those features at once. They had to make specialized cartridges with them built in. Hu-cards certainly can't anything either do, nor can the E-reader. They're similar, they're all technogies, but not the same thing.

@Zombie_Barioth you will not accept the fact this has been done many times over and no matter how it was done it is the same or similar thing.

For example in the medical field Cocaine which was later replaced by amphetamine.
That is basically your argument.

THEY ARE SELLING STATUES THAT ARE BIG BULKY PIECES OF POKEMON FIGURES that contains an piece of electrical data technology.

This technology could also fit inside of an Hu-card, or Bee-Card, or Credit-card, or Baseball Card, or even an Gameboy Cartridge, or even NES cartridge, or even located on an CD somewhere.

Not new at all. That is what I am stressing. I will admit, it is an nice idea to have an giant statue that is basically an electronic key card, that uses flash storage, or rom storage, or even radio waves being instructed. It is an nice idea.

It would be even more nice if they had whole games inside of them as well. Why not make them the size of HU-cards which are the size of an wash-card in an laundromat. Or even an special key for an car.

@RegalSin
No, what we have here is a case of finer details vs the big picture.

They may do similar things, but a ROM chip is not a microchip, just as a fish is not a bird or vice versa. They work differently, they have their own advantages and disadvantages. What you're referring to would be considered common ground.

You're also wrong about cocaine and amphetamines, the former was a surgical numbing agent/anesthetic, the latter as a nervous system stimulant for ADHD and narcolepsy. That actually supports my point.

You do know the very technology NFC is based on (RFID), which I referenced before, has been around since the early 80's don't you? I never said it was new, its use in games is.

@Zombie_Barioth it is so sad that you defend this product blindingly. RFID/NFC whatever is really just another "Gameboy Camera" to be waiting for. You being the naive consumer chess piece ( as I was and try not to be ) is going to contiguously buy into this product. -30 dollars per figure and they are not even action figures is an complete joke.

That is what these are. They ( the evil corperations want you to do ). Get idea of having tracking chips inside of peoples products. That is stupid.

We are living in an society where our best and brightest who have perfectly functioning body parts are becoming shut-in-slaves who are handing over every single cent, and moment of there lives to moving pictures, and sounds.

These ammibo's are just action figures with PCB ( may it be an couple of wires with an rom ).

Your time is important, and so is your health.
Like the Gameboy camera time will past and will become seeminglyless un-important.

Happy gaming. One day we will have figures with chips that will dance around and move. Will be just as cheap as well. But in reality the value of our money will go down, to make up for loss.

@RegalSin
I don't even own, much less buy them, nice try though. This might be a good time to dismount that 'enlightened' high-horse of yours.

I certainly agree that NFC figures (again, not just Amiibo) are gimmicky, I'm not defending anything, I just take issue with your over-generalizations. Its the sum of the parts I'm looking at, not the one thing they all have in common.

That's why I keep insisting they're not the same, its like comparing charcoal to propane. Go tell someone who knows a thing or two about grilling that they're "the same thing" and see what you get.