At a recent investor briefing, Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata unleashed a bevy of information about the company’s NFC-equipped figures that have taken the world by storm. Pay attention, Amiibo fans, there’s a lot to go through.
Nintendo is currently planning a Wii U app that will allow you to scan an Amiibo and unlock playable chunks of NES or SNES games featuring the character. While they only unlock short, timed snippets of the full games, it was also stated that scanning the same Amiibo multiple times will unlock more game samples.
During the briefing, Iwata stated, “In contrast to the current figure-shaped amiibo available, we will make amiibo in the form of cards this year as one of our future plans as Mr. Miyamoto mentioned at the Corporate Management Policy Briefing in October.” While I personally don’t find Amiibo cards quite as cool as the plastic figures, this option should, hopefully, make them cheaper, more accessible, and help relieve some of the strain on demand, which Nintendo admits far exceeded its expectations.
Nintendo also confirmed some good news for people not planning to upgrade to New 3DS in the near future. Sometime this summer, Nintendo is planning to release an NFC adapter for older 3DS models, thus allowing them to take advantage of Super Smash Bros., Code Name: S.T.E.A.M., and other Amiibo empowered titles.
Speaking of demand, Iwata also went into detail regarding Amiibo sell through around the world. As of the end of 2014, Nintendo had sold about 5.7 million of the figures globally; considering the fact a couple more waves have launched since then, we can only assume that number as grown. Nintendo also went into market specific detail and revealed which units have sold the most and have been the hardest to come by in different parts of the world. Link appears to be the most popular, taking the number one spot in North America, Japan, and Europe while coming in third in Australia, losing to Mario and Pikachu. Mario managed to make the top 3 in every market, and Pikachu almost did the same were it not for him being beat out by Kirby and Marth in Japan. Luigi has fared surprisingly poorly– his top spot is in Australia where he took number 7, but in Europe and North America he just managed to make the 10 spot, and in Japan he didn’t even crack the top 10. It’s not easy being green.
Now we’ve all heard the horror stories about Amiibo scalping as people desperately try to complete their collections, so let’s take a look at which figures have sold the through the most of their allotments. Captain Falcon is number one in Japan, Marth tops North America, Little Mac beats the competition in Europe, and Ike is the toughest to find in Australia.
Be sure to stay on the lookout for more news about those Amiibo cards and old 3DS adapters along with even more Amiibo news.
Source: Nintendo Life, Kotaku