Amiibos?

[Gentlegamer1]

I don't have a Wii U, but I'm buying some because they're neat little Nintendo figures.

I'm getting Mario, Zelda, and Metroid.

     

[Rev1]

I feel like this is Nintendo trying to do the whole e-Reader thing again. Like 10-15 years ago Nintendo started selling e-Reader cards which did basically the exact same thing (it gave extra content to games). The only thing I find attractive about this is just having cool figurines of my favorite Nintendo characters. Still, it seems like the same idea of the e-reader cards (which didn't do well).

[ActRaiser1]

The other thing that for me at least makes it less appealing is that with the Disney stuff you're given the option to take a character that may not have been in a video game before and experience that character directly within the Infinity universe.

As odd as it sounds that's one of the reasons I picked up Donald Duck and Hulk this weekend at Best Buy.  Sure, they're in a few games from more than 10 years ago.  Now, compare that with the Nintendo games.  There's a new Mario game once a year when you look across the various systems.  The Nintendo characters lack that extra sense of, wow, when you get to see them in a video game form.  

I'm sure Amiibos will be awesome and they'll come up with some cool uses for them but I don't think I'm going to start collecting them.  (although Samus sure does look good)

[Paul1231]

That Link figurine looks painful...

[Atarifever1]

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/11/11/nintendos-next-wave-of-amiibo-includes-mega-man-and-sonic

And there's the third party angle. Wonder how long before Rayman? He's going to need some kind of small wire supports I guess.

As for the "play a character in a game for the first time in awhile" thing Actraiser brought up, you could as easily argue those properties have had much better figures for years, so the Infinity ones are extra boring figures. That's the reverse of Amiibos, where the characters are in games a lot, cross property figure sets infrequently. In both cases, they're going somewhere they go less frequently, and somewhere they've been a billion times before.

[Tron1]

Seems very ironic to me. The industry treats games like cheap disposable products yet there are these expensive accessories for them. As far fetched as it seems maybe these figures will influence the industry in making games more collectible as well. Of course that would mean preorder bonuses and DLC would have to be shelved and that sure as rain ain't gonna happen.

[VideoGameCritic]

Good point Tron.  It's like how game packaging is becoming more and more skimpy, yet they still like to release "special editions" with elaborate packaging.  I guess there are two types of consumers - those who just play games to pass the time (casual players), and collectors who actually value their games (us).

While I'm a bit skeptical about these Amiibos (not planning to collect them all) I'll take physical accessories over digital ones any day, since a physical object has real value.

I have to admit my Skylander figures are pretty cool.  They are well designed and high quality.  I suspect these Nintendo figures will be even better, even if they are less useful.

[velcrozombie1]

The best suggestion I've heard for an Amiibo is the banjo-playing old man from the cover of Phalanx.

Get on it, Nintendo!

 

[scotland171]

Been seeing oddball stories on *defective* amiibos.  Yes defective Nintendo products.  Not the RFID stuff, but the toy statue itself.  Luigi's missing hands, Samus double arm cannon, Princess Peach minus her legs, etc.  Why is a defective toy newsworthy?  Seems like stamps, factory sealed defects are seen as being more valuable due to rarity. 

 
Being Christmas Time, Nintendo has shown us we should have no problem at all finding homes for all those misfit toys...

[HardcoreSadism1]

[QUOTE=scotland17]
Being Christmas Time, Nintendo has shown us we should have no problem at all finding homes for all those misfit toys...
[/QUOTE]

As collectible as defectives are this is a sign of Nintendo possibly rushing future products, since toys aren't really unfamiliar to them.

Unfortunate.