The Good, Bad and Ugly of Amiibo
- michellericks95
- May 22, 2015
- 3 min read

What I believed to be a fun way to unlock content and start a collection of our favorite characters drastically changed into a frenzy of pre-order nightmares and ridiculous eBay money makers. What am I talking about? Amiibo.
I realized just how crazy this Amiibo thing really was when we wanted to pick up our Ike Amiibo last week. We pre-ordered it months ago. While on vacation, The Gamer got a call saying it was finally in the store. Since we were away and couldn’t pick it up immediately, it was sold to someone else. Now we did get another one the next day, but I was dumfounded by how out-of-hand the Amiibo situation is.
What is an Amiibo you may ask? Here’s how Ben Bertoli from Kotaku explained them:
“Amiibo are figures that use near field communication (NFC) in their base to store player data or unlock content in games. This kind of ‘toys come to life’ content has been widely successful with both the Skylanders and Disney Infinity series over the past years. Though Nintendo first tried NFC figures with Pokémon Rumble Arena for Wii U, this is their first time producing multiple waves and more detailed characters.”
Since the first wave of Amiibo, Nintendo found that they underestimated just how successful these figures would be.
THE GOOD
Amiibo is a great and fun way to unlock certain things for different Wii U games. The Gamer really liked scanning each figure for Hyrule Warriors, seeing what new weapon and other prizes he would get. He loved training the custom Amiibo for Super Smash Bros also. That’s something even I have delved into and enjoyed.
I think the biggest selling factor for Amiibo is not the NFC features but just pure nostalgia. I get to have a Link figure that can also come to life on a game and give me extra things in games? Sign me up!
THE BAD
Nintendo is struggling to keep up with the demand. Just last week, the company shipped out $10.5 million figures, and it still isn’t enough. Most stores do not carry new waves because they have all been held by pre-order buyers. All I ever see in stores are Marios and Pikachus.
The rarity has been so bad, that IGN made a categorization chart for the figures: Common, Semi-Common, Uncommon, Rare and Unicorn. It’s been a miracle that we have some Rare figures such as Ike and Fox, even a Pit figure (categorized as Unicorn). Good luck trying to find a Wii Fit Trainer and Villager. I’ve heard they have been discontinued. Amiibo having its own new categorization is, to me, a bad thing.
THE UGLY
Trying to get your favorite Amiibo is a battle of the Nintendo nerds. If you don’t pre-order, then you’re out of luck. According to Paul Tassi from Forbes, wave 4 Amiibo (which includes Pacman, Ness, Robin, Lucina, Wario and Charizard) sold out faster than Taylor Swift concert tickets. The sales actually managed to crash GameStop’s website.
The rush for more figures has also caused some infamous defects as well. Back in December, a double cannon Samus sold for $2,500 on eBay. Other defect figures include no-legs Peach, two swords Marth and hand-missing Luigi. Those figures have sold for hefty prices as well.
See what I mean? It’s an absolute nightmare and the chaos is taking away the delight of collecting.

Do you think Nintendo will ever fix this problem? Let us know.
See you next week!
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