The Problems with Amiibo

Amiibos are great, but the current situation is bullshit. So lets talk about that.

The latest Amiibo wave, which included Lucina, more than ever showed the problems Nintendo has with its products. For example Libro, an Austrian retailer, only received 2 Lucina Amiibos. For the whole of Austria. Currently she sells for a about 39 bucks on Amazon. This poses a real danger for the potential of Amiibos because more and more potential customers can't get the Amiibo they want. ''Why should I even try. I won't get it either way'' Many people already think like that.

The insanity reached its peak when Amazon had to release specific time frames in which you could then pre-order Amiibos.

Nintendo fucked up with the production of Amiibos. There is just no other way to say this. The only question now is, how they fucked up. Either they have very, very conservative estimates of the sales potential Amiibos posses, or they are deliberately holding back their production. Both possibilities show that Nintendo is just stupid, but let's talk about them either way.

After 2 years of losses Nintendo is very cautious. Of course they are. Satoru Iwata needs to secure his position. The company is Japanese, which are generally very risk averse. With the Wii-U situation and the 3DS, which sells good, but not even close to its predecessor, they hoped for Amiibos to be the next big thing. But they also hoped that the Wii-U could compete with the Wii saleswise. So this time they choose a very safe approach, because they didn't want even one unsold Amiibo. And that was ok... last November. But now they have the numbers. They know that people are going crazy over this figures. Time after time they were sold out and Nintendo refused to up the production of them. Their apologies also lose their value after every wave that has stock problems. So they know the demand for these figures and simply still don't want to increase production, because it's better to sell less, but all you have in stock, than to sell much more, but only reach a sell through of 70%. From a business sense this may make sense, but it is very short sighted. Yes they sell all of the Amiibos they produce. Yes the don't make any losses on them. But they're customers also start to lose interest, because the can't get the product they want. After the second, third or fourth fruitless attempt of getting the figure you want, you probably gonna say: Fuck it! And with that Nintendo no only lost 2-4 sales, but also all future ones. Also word of mouth travels fast, and will probably discourage even more potential customers.

Now this was the first possible answer for the Amiibo shortages. The second one is even worse. Seeing the numbers and knowing the demand, Nintendo still doesn't up the production because it doesn't want to. The company wants to create an artificial shortage. With this they increase the demand to absurd levels. (I'm looking at you Rosalina Amiibo) While this is a viable strategy, it's also practically spitting on your customers. And it is a dangerous strategy, because, like I said in the paragraph above, instead of creating more demand it also can create a fatigue. It's a thin line Nintendo is currently balancing on. And if they don't pay attention it may tilt.

Now I'm a Nintendo fan, but I find it hard to believe that the company is stupid enough to not see the clear demand for Amiibos, so I don't think reason one for the shortage is correct. Sadly I think they are creating a artificial shortage. Let's just hope they don't burn themselves with that strategy.

And now for the second negative point about Amiib. The current integration into games. Nintendo sold the Amiibos with the promise, that they would be useful in a wide array of games. And for the first half of this year this was mostly true. But everything changed with Splatoon. When they first announced the game and such, I wrote that it would probably support all Amiibos. It just seemed logical. With the games focus on clothing, it would have been perfect for that. Then the announced the Splatoon Amiibos and I was hyped. Callenging special missions? Ok that maybe is a little bit DLCish, but you get some cool rewards. But then Splatoon released and apart from the three Inkling Amiibos none other were supported. Not Mario. Not Link. Not Samus.

Why?
Scan your Mario Amiibo and receive his Hat for your Inkling to wear. The same goes for Links Tunic, Dks tie, Samus Helmet, etc. It was obvious. But they didn't do it. Any Amiibo integration would have been fine. Just give us an ordinary clothing item and a short challenge mission. But nope. It's eat(have the Splatoon Amiibos) or die (Sucks to be you). It doesn't bode well for the future of Amiibo, if they can't come up with a use for all of them on a game like Splatoon. I mean Yoshis Wooly World does it perfectly.

I don't hope this is the start of at trend, or soon you'll need a specific Amiibo for each game you get. And then they truly are nothing more than overprices, physical DLC.

Luckily I'm done with them, after I got my Zero Suit Samus. But what are your thoughts on this topic? Have you missed out on an Amiibo you truly wanted? Are you happy with their integration so far?

And as always

thanks for reading

source of both pictures: Nintendo