Amiibo

Development

Toys for Bob and its parent company Activision had offered an opportunity for Nintendo to be a partner in a new video game franchise known as Skylanders, which would use RFID-equipped character figurines and a special reader component to interact with the game itself, and could store data on the figurine itself such as the corresponding character's statistics. While Nintendo passed on the exclusivity deal, the franchise itself quickly became one of Activison's most successful franchises upon its launch as a spin-off of the Spyro the Dragon series, and also resulted in competition from Disney Interactive Studios, who would release a game with a similar concept known as Disney Infinity in 2013.

In March 2013, long predating Amiibo, Nintendo unveiled Pokémon Rumble U, the first game for the Wii U to utilise the Wii U GamePad's near-field communications support to enable the use of its own interactive figurines. During an investors' meeting in May 2014, Nintendo presented a prototype of a more comprehensive figurine platform for its 3DS and Wii U consoles, which was designed so that the figurines could be used across multiple games. The new system was codenamed NFP, standing for either "Nintendo Figurine Platform" or "NFC Featured Platform", and was slated to be officially unveiled during E3. On June 10, 2014 during E3 2014, Nintendo officially announced the Amiibo platform, and that Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U would be among the first games to provide features integrating with Amiibo figurines.

In a corporate policy event after the launch of the Amiibo platform, Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto addressed the platform's future by stating that the company is "now moving forward with projects that make use of NFC in a variety of unique ways. Nintendo is known as a video game company, but in fact, it is also a toy company."

Release

Super Smash Bros. Amiibo were first released in North America on November 21, 2014, in Europe on November 28, 2014, and in Japan on December 6, 2014, along with the release of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.

The Super Mario series, featuring Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, Bowser, and Toad, arrived on March 20, 2015 for both regions.

In 2015, Nintendo began to extend the Amiibo line into new form factors; on February 27, 2015, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata revealed that the company had plans to release Amiibo-enabled trading cards. On April 1, 2015, Nintendo unveiled Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, a spin-off in the Animal Crossing series that will utilise Amiibo cards. Nintendo also unveiled Amiibo yarn plushies as a tie-in for Yoshi's Woolly World.

During the E3 2015 Nintendo Direct on June 16, 2015, Activision revealed Bowser and Donkey Kong Amiibo (Hammer Slam Bowser and Turbo Charge Donkey Kong) and vehicles for use in Skylanders: SuperChargers. These Amiibo are compatible with either the Skylanders games or Amiibo games by means of a mode switch on their bases. They will work across platforms in Skylanders: SuperChargers.

On August 27, 2015, an Amiibo of the titular character from the indie video game Shovel Knight was unveiled, which will unlock content exclusive to the 3DS and Wii U versions of the game and its future installments. It is the first Amiibo of a non-Nintendo character that is not associated with a first-party title; previous Amiibo of third-party characters were associated with Super Smash Bros. Additionally, production and distribution of the figurine will be overseen by the game's publisher, Yacht Club Games, rather than Nintendo (except in Japan where the latter is the publisher), although it will still officially be marketed by Nintendo as part of the Amiibo line as a form of brand licensing. Explaining the arrangement, a Nintendo representative stated that "we were like, what's one thing that Nintendo could do that nobody [else] could ever do?"

There is also a The Legend of Zelda Amiibo line: It initially began solely with the Wolf Link Amiibo, which is mainly used in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD (and later Breath of the Wild). It will be expanded with the 30th Anniversary collection (8-bit Link, Ocarina of Time Link, The Wind Waker Link, and The Wind Waker Zelda), and the Breath of the Wild collection (Archer Link, Rider Link, Zelda, a Bokoblin, and a Guardian).

Collectibility and supply issues

The Amiibo line quickly spiked in popularity, with preorders selling out before the products became available to the public. While Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata stated that Amiibo will be kept in stock, he also explained that some will be "limited-time offers which will cede their positions to new ones once they are sold out". The rarity of certain Amiibo influenced the prices held by online retailers and auctions, of which most can be seen offering select Amiibo at prices above the retail price. In Nintendo's 3rd Quarter Financial Results Briefing for the Fiscal Year Ending March 2015, Satoru Iwata stated that he was aware of such online auctions that offered "premium prices" of sold out Amiibo, and expressed surprise at these actions. A number of first-wave Amiibo with manufacturing defects were discovered and sold for notably high prices, such as a Samus Amiibo that had cannons on both arms instead of one being sold on eBay for US$2,500, while a defect of Princess Peach with missing legs was sold for US$25,100.

On April 2, 2015, when preorders were being taken for the May 29 release of the Super Smash Bros. series Wave 4 and the Splatoon series, the US preorder process crashed both GameStop's website and in-store register system. Nintendo acknowledged these issues in early May 2015. Amazon forewent the entire preorder process for those waves; it instead blocked out specific time intervals on their release date during which the non-retailer exclusive Amiibo and the Super Mario series Silver Mario Amiibo were available. The retailer continued this practice with its exclusive release of the Palutena Amiibo as well as those released on September 11, 2015.

In response to the lack of certain Amiibo in the United States, Satoru Iwata explained in a Q & A on February 17 that "an ongoing labor dispute on the west coast" has delayed the "discharge of cargo over the past six months", and is the cause of the absences of certain Amiibo intended to be delivered before its launch in November. Following this announcement, rarer Amiibo such as Wii Fit Trainer, Meta Knight, and Ike have been receiving limited re-releases in North America. For the US, the exclusive Best Buy release of the Dark Pit Amiibo, the retailer announced it would not take any preorders or online orders and the Amiibo would be limited to one per customer. While some news sources such as Kotaku came out in favour of Best Buy's practice, alternatively in response to this (and the difficulty of acquiring previous retailer-exclusives), others, such as Brian Altano, Jose Otero, and Peer Schneider of IGN's Nintendo Voice Chat podcast, have encouraged American collectors to import these hard-to-find items.

Hardware support

The Wii U and New Nintendo 3DS both contain integrated NFC support, and can be used with Amiibo. On Wii U, Amiibo are scanned using an NFC reader contained within the Wii U GamePad. Amiibo support was formally introduced to the consoles' firmware in November and December 2014; these updates added an Amiibo menu to the system settings area, allowing users to scan, register, and erase data from Amiibo.

A separate NFC reader accessory allows use of Amiibo on the original Nintendo 3DS, 3DS XL, and 2DS models; in Japan, released in "Summer 2015", and released alongside Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer in North America. The Nintendo Switch will also support Amiibo upon its release on March 3, 2017.

Amiibo data communication

Supported games offer one of two kinds of Amiibo compatibility; the ability to access an Amiibo's NFC tag and store data, and read-only recognition. Each Amiibo largely corresponds to a specific game that can access its storage space, though some may have multiple games that can use it. However, each Amiibo can only store data from one compatible game at a time, meaning data must be deleted to use it with a different title. For example, a Mario Amiibo containing data from Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U must have the data for that game deleted to store data from Mario Party 10. Many games offer compatibility with specific Amiibo on a read-only basis, allowing for additional content to be unlocked in that game. For example, using certain Amiibo with Mario Kart 8 unlocks costumes based on the corresponding Amiibo. Existing Wii U and 3DS games can receive updates that enable them to recognise Amiibo. Due to their co-development effort on Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, Bandai Namco Entertainment were the first third-party publishers to embrace the Amiibo concept in some of their own games.

List of Amiibo items

The following list features all known NFC items branded under Amiibo, originally produced in the form of character figurines as of 2014, then cards as of 2015, and other types in the future. Nintendo designed all Amiibo characters to be cross-compatible with all games that support specific Amiibo characters, regardless of whichever model line these characters belong to; for example, Mario figurines from both the Super Smash Bros. and Super Mario series have the same functionality. According to Shinya Takahashi of Nintendo's SPD division, the Super Smash Bros. line, being released in waves since November 21, 2014, would be planned to cumulatively feature at least 55 Amiibo models, one for each of the game's playable characters. The Super Mario line was released on March 20, 2015 along with Mario Party 10, featuring 6 Amiibo models. In the April 2015 Nintendo Direct presentation, it was revealed that additional games (beyond Super Smash Bros.) would receive corresponding Amiibo: Splatoon and Yoshi's Woolly World. Yoshi's line are soft dolls instead of hard plastic figurines. The same Direct also revealed the upcoming Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer would support Amiibo cards rather than figurines at all.

There are currently 121 Amiibo figurines, 3 Amiibo card series, and 14 noted variants on this list.

List of Animal Crossing Amiibo cards

The following is a list of all confirmed Amiibo cards for the Animal Crossing series of games. Series 1, 2, 3 and 4 consist of 100 cards each. Additionally, there are five cards which aren't part of any series. After the announcement that New Leaf would receive an amiibo update a new series of 50 Animal Crossing RV cards was announced, plus an additional series of 6 cards based around characters by Sanrio.

Exclusives

In North America, Australia, and New Zealand, at launch some Amiibo toys are only available in selected retailers. In Australia and New Zealand, this practice is limited to Mario (Silver Edition), Dark Hammer Slam Bowser, and Dark Turbo Charge Donkey Kong being limited to EB Games and Mario (Gold Edition) being limited to Target in Australia and Mighty Ape in New Zealand; however, in North America it is much more widespread. Some Amiibo, such as Villager, were originally non-exclusives, but later became exclusive to retailers during restocks.