Amiibos: A one year story of hunting and collecting

November 21, 2014 is a day where Nintendo and its fans will look back on with a big smile.  Not only was it the release day for Super Smash Bros. on the Wii U, but it also marked the day where Nintendo released a little NFC figure that became so popular; they crashed websites, caused Black Friday type lines well after the holiday seasons, made Nintendo a millions of dollars, and in the process, still provided a fun alternative to various games that the player couldn’t get through without using these little things. Of course ladies and gentlemen, I am talking about AMIIBOS!

For the people that have been living under a rock over the past year, let’s explain exactly what Amiibos are, and how they work.  Amiibos are Nintendo’s version of the ever popular Skylanders and Disney Infintiy NFC figures, with the difference being that these figures are allowed to work with several games rather than just one game.  These figures have worked in various titles such as Super Smash Bros., Hyrule Warriors, Mario Kart, Splatoon, and many others.  However, the Amiibos are more effective in some games than in others.  For example, in Smash Bros you can take your figure and level them up, while being able to customize your fighter the way you would like them to fight; whereas in Mario Kart, the only thing the Amiibos provide is give your Mii various racing suits to wear, from a Mario suit to a Sonic the Hedgehog suit.  Even though Amiibos do different things in different games, they have become one of Nintendo’s most popular items.

Despite the fact that the Wii U has not garnered the success that its predecessor the Nintendo Wii has attained, Amiibos have still let Nintendo see profitable success in the video game market.  In the period of April 1^st through September 30^th of 2015, Amiibo sales were at 1.2 Billion dollars throughout the world, which sold more than what Wii U after its first year of being released.  Those are unbelievable numbers considering that Amiibos are usually sold at a $12.99 to $13.99 price tag (depending on the retailer). Regardless of the poor Wii U Sales numbers, Amiibos are the main reason why Nintendo is still seeing success and profit. On a side note, with the new system set to release next year, perhaps Nintendo will see success again, just as it did when the original Wii was released.

Here at NerdSplash, we have given our fair share of contribution to the sales of Amiibos.  It has been quite interesting looking for these little guys in retail stores and on the internet.  We obtained our first Amiibo with the purchase of Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U. Of course, there was no better choice of Amiibo than Link, so he became the first in the collection.  At first it was not obvious if Amiibos would see success, but as game play in Smash continued, the Link Amiibo adjusted to the style of fighting of the person who played. Once the Amiibo reached level 50, it was obvious the capability they possessed. The Amiibo provided the best and toughest CPU challenge to fight against in the game. The better the user of the Amiibo, the better the CPU became, and the tougher the challenge it provides. Originally, our plan was to obtain a few Amiibos, but as Nintendo gave confirmation to the release of new Amiibos, we started to obtain them not just as collectibles but to train them all in Smash as well.

At the beginning, obtaining Amiibos was not an easy task.  Even as pre-orders, they were about as hard as getting a 3 day pass to PAX East; in the blink of an eye they were all gone.  Obviously, what really captures the Amiibo’s popularity and how fast they sold is the infamous crashing of the Gamestop website when the Ness Amiibo was available for pre-order. People all over the country visited the website in hopes of pre-ordering the Gamestop exclusive Ness Amiibo. The website saw so much traffic, it crashed. Amiibos became extremely popular in a short period of time, reaching high prices on websites like EBay. That method of obtaining them was not the best way due to the high prices. As the Amiibo hunting became more intense, showing up hours before a store opened became the only way to obtain them at a decent price. Sure enough, people set up tents in parking lots, just as they would on days like Black Friday, just to get their hands on Amiibos. Obtaining the Amiibos took dedication and a bit of luck. Arriving early at stores and then hastily traveling to other stores to obtain exclusive ones. Finally, the NerdSplash Amiibo collection was completed for the first four waves.

July of 2015 was the turning point of when Amiibos became much more accessible.  With the exception of the Palutena Amiibo that was an Amazon exclusive (they have not re-released Palutena since the first release), the rest of the Amiibos were not difficult to obtain. For Amiibos such as the Best-Buy exclusive Dark Pit, it was still necessary to arrive at the store early to obtain. The difference is, it was not necessary to arrive as early to the store to obtain, as some of the previous months, and the lines were not as lengthy. The difference between the Dark Pit release and other releases was that the stores did not do a pre-order for them, but did provide a release date of July 31^st.  Best-Buy stores were limited to about 30 per store; however online purchasing was very accessible. The Dark Pit Amiibo stayed up for about 2 days for online purchasing. The two day mark was much longer than the previous Amiibo releases, which were not available for longer than two hours as pre-orders.  Also, older Amiibos were being re-released in higher quantities than before.  A recent example would be the Villager Amiibo which for close to a year was impossible to get at normal price. Recently Toys R Us received shipments of hundreds of Villagers for each store which made getting one extremely easy.  Since July, Nintendo provided the supply that the consumers were demanding, and now Amiibos have become much easier to find in stores and online.

There is no doubt that over the past year Amiibos have become one of the hottest items to get in the video game world.  However with the Smash Bros. lineup coming to a close, the question is; will Amiibos continue to stay as hot as they are, or will they start to sizzle off into the sunset?  Only time will give answer to that question, but we know one thing for sure, Amiibos are still extremely popular, and for the time being, they are here to stay.