Topic: Loot Crate Partnering with Nintendo for Amiibo Crates

[alexosborn]

Delivering Nintendo's adorable little figures right to your door.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/38979/loot-crate-partnering-with-nintendo-for-amiibo-crates

Loot Crate is partnering with Nintendo to bring amiibo figurines to its popular mail-based subscription service.

"Loot Crate has teamed up with Nintendo to bring you an epic amiibo crate!" a post on the company's official site explains. There's no word on when amiibo figurines will be part of Loot Crate's offerings, but you can join the mailing list to stay updated on when it'll be made available to the public.

Just last week, Nintendo game creator Shigeru Miyamoto revealed that the company is looking to expand amiibo to cards and cheaper toys as well. It'll be interesting to see if Loot Crate ends up supporting more than just the Super Smash Bros. figurines through this partnership in the future.

[Soren]

I keep hearing about Loot Crate on podcasts I listen to. This might be the time I use up one of those offer codes they keep giving.


Or maybe not. The press release is really ambiiiguous. This is either a separate subscription service just for amiibo and Nintendo (it mentions 3 crates during the holidays) or something else differently.

[ejamer]

This seems like a really interesting distribution method. Will there be any discount offered? When will people have to commit to buying? Is this just a way to determine which figures aren't selling as well and get rid of overstocked figures a few weeks after release?


Regardless of the answers, it seems like a smart move by Nintendo of America to partner with Loot Crate.  I like it.

[ejamer]

So details are out now:


Pricing: $165 or $155, depending on whether you make a single payment or break it into 3 payments
Amiibos: Donkey Kong, Mario, Kirby, Pikachu, Princess Peach, Yoshi, Fox, Samus, Luigi, Zelda
Extras: stickers, cinch bag, t-shirt


But there's a pretty significant catch for many people: shipping is only available to the US.. Wish that would've been advertised earlier. I saw specific comments that shipping to Canada was available when joining the mailing list, but that apparently only applies to normal Loot Crates.


Oh well - the pricing isn't aggressive enough to make me feel bad about this anyway.

[UncleBob]

The pricing is horrible.  More than retail.  Not to mention things like TRU is running them  3/$10 at launch.  Ugh.

[ejamer]

The pricing is horrible.  More than retail.  Not to mention things like TRU is running them  3/$10 at launch.  Ugh.

Well, "more than retail" might not be exactly accurate. Seems to be almost exactly MSRP pricing, if you take into account that Nintendo charges for the "bonus" items as well as the Amiibo figures.


But I agree that better deals are easy to find elsewhere with free shipping, retailer promotions, and better selection all available.

[Soren]

Yeah. Saw the pricing details and immediately deleted the email. This is not worth it.

[UncleBob]

I don't know what the MSRP on the bonus items would be, but ten figures at MSRP would be 129.90.  For that $25.10 over MSRP, you get a sticker, a wrist band, a bag, a shirt and three pieces of advertising.

In addition, you lose out on any kind of in-store promotions, picking out individual figures you want (if you don't plan on getting them all), checking the paint jobs on the figures and the condition of the packages you get (if you're that hard core), and you don't get the figures at launch, being forced to wait several weeks before getting them all (even if you pay for them all at once).

Depending on one's take on the included bonus items, it may not be "more than retail", but, simply, it's a bad deal.

*fake edit* - thought I had posted this before I left this morning, but apparently, I didn't.  Anywhoo - stopped by TRU today to pre-order the set (since they're doing 3 for $30 at launch) - and realized there are 12 in the full set - this deal doesn't even get you a set?  Weird.