Topic: Nintendo of America Issues Statement on Amiibo Supply Issues

[Lazers]

Nintendo's been doing a lot of "talking" about fixing the Amiibo supply problem since the first wave, and so far the situation's only gotten worse. Meanwhile, Wave 4 sold out in 15 minutes here in the states while simultaneously taking down the website of the biggest dedicated gaming realtor. I lucked out that one of the staff here found several stores with full shelves of Wave 4 figures in Australia that I was able to procure a Ness; Lucina; and Robin, but that raises questions of its own as to where Nintendo's allocating their resources. I'd like to acquire a Shulk; Ike; & Marth someday, but given the current state of Amiibo that is nowhere near a reasonable expectation.

I'm tired of Nintendo's excuses and empty promises. It feels like all Nintendo's done since the Wii U launched (if not much earlier) is make excuses for whatever latest way they've ****ed up.

When the Wii U GC adapter mess happened, they promised more of those later. They were up pretty much daily on Amazon and EB/GS for a two week stretch last month, so they definitely delivered on those. I know at least two scarce Amiibo (Shulk and Marth) are/have gotten restocked in the States and Meta Knight is rumoured. Just this morning I saw Marth, Ike, and Meta Knight got restocked in Australia. Three other rare Amiibo (Captain Falcon, Little Mac, and Villager) very recently got restocked in Japan as well.

They screwed things up majorly (and continue to do so), but to say they're only making empty promises and not trying to remedy the situation in any capacity is unfair.

[UncleBob]

However, Intelligent Systems is 100% owned by Nintendo so Fire Emblem Characters (Ike Marth, Robin, Lucina) are not a problem. Little Mac Wii Fit Trainer, Villager, Wario, Toad, Rosalina, Pit are fully owned by Nintendo.

Is IS wholly owned by Nintendo?  I can't find a source on that.

As per your list, Toad is still new, Wario is in ample supply where he's been released, Villager and Little Mac have had reissues.  Can't comment on WFT, Rosalina (might be waiting on a MP10 Release for her) or Pit - except to say, it's not as easy as finding another factory and turning on a power button.

[fred13]

Man this argument just won't quit (although it's entertaining to read)
Intelligent Systems is a subsidiary of Nintendo see the first sentance here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_Systems
or read this
http://www.ign.com/companies/intelligent-systems

Yes Toad is new that's the point of this whole Amiibo debacle nobody can find Amiibo if they had started making adjustments last year when they started selling out then there would be enough Toad Amiibo for everyone that wants one.


Wario is what? Where are you shopping?
Not Best Buy http://www.bestbuy.com/site/searchpage.jsp?st=wario+amiibo&_dyncharset=UTF-8&id=pcat17071&type=page&sc=Global&cp=1&nrp=15&sp=&qp=&list=n&iht=y&usc=All+Categories&ks=960&keys=keys


Not Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Wario-amiibo-nintendo-wii-u/dp/B00V86C4LS/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1430846642&sr=8-2&keywords=wario+amiibo


Not GameStop
http://www.gamestop.com/browse?nav=16k-3-wario+amiibo,28zu0


Not Target
http://www.target.com/p/nintendo-wario-amiibo-figure/-/A-17318492#prodSlot=medium_1_1&term=wario+amiibo


Reissues? I haven't seen any. Several times a week I go to Best Buy and or Walmart and look for Amiibo and I haven't found anything worth mentioning in months. Even though I called 2 different GameStops multiple times a week for a month I never found a Shulk and Nintendo also fully owns Monolith Soft. I had to find a random guy that was willing to sell it to me (trust me this is not a cheap method of getting Amiibo) I'm very irritated

[UncleBob]

Re: IS - "Subsidiary" doesn't equate to "Wholly owned subsidiary."
Re: Toad - again, this stuff is planned out months/years in advance.  They cannot just say "hey, next month, let's make more Toad instead of Splatoon."
Re: Wario - Wait, wait, wait.  Wario isn't out in the states yet - so don't source US websites.  He's pretty plentiful overseas (he's Wave 4's Bowser).
Re: Reissues - haven't had any shipped to the US yet (released to the public, that is).

[pokepal148]

Take a guess at how long it took my latest twitter account @Retail_Dalek to make a tweet about amiibo... 3 tweets...

[Soren]

There's such a thing as too much supply here. Retailers don't want tons of these sitting on store shelves, and Nintendo is producing them with that in mind.

That's not really problem seeing as the toys aren't even making it to the shelves...

[lolmonade]

As someone in supply management, Armchair manufacturing experts in here makes my head hurt.

[UncleBob]

If I have misspoken something, please do feel free to offer a correction.  I won't be offended.

I may argue the point with you, but I won't be offended.

[lolmonade]

If I have misspoken something, please do feel free to offer a correction.  I won't be offended.

I may argue the point with you, but I won't be offended.

I assure you, your'e the closest thing to right in this thread in terms of speaking to both the complexities of ramping up production and the economics of doing so.  I could write a dissertation on why it isn't "easy" to set up new production as it's been suggested, but I don't think anyone's truly interested in that.

[UncleBob]

I may have some exact details wrong (which is why I'm always open to corrections) - but, yeah.  I figure that I'm pretty spot-on with the general details.

[Night_Hawk-19]

When you get 90 percent cancellation of Robin and Lucinda (EBGames) then you still have a problem.  Rather miffed that 10 mins in any given time amiibos are gone.  At least with Skylanders it was somewhat easier.  Most time I have to go to craigslist in Canada.  Apparently because of short supply most retailers in Canada won't do pre-orders for wave 5 onward.  That says a lot.   Its big hassle and easier in USA than in Canada.  Most international places do not ship overseas now. 

Nintendo needs to fix this problem before people leave to Microsoft or Sony.  You may in short term keep loyal fans but in long term screwing over your faithful will have dire circumstances in the future.

[Soren]

Nintendo needs to fix this problem before people leave to Microsoft or Sony.  You may in short term keep loyal fans but in long term screwing over your faithful will have dire circumstances in the future.

The kind of people that want a Robin amiibo aren't the people who are just going to stop being Nintendo fans all of a sudden.

[UncleBob]

Nintendo needs to fix this problem before people leave to Microsoft or Sony.  You may in short term keep loyal fans but in long term screwing over your faithful will have dire circumstances in the future.

The kind of people that want a Robin amiibo aren't the people who are just going to stop being Nintendo fans all of a sudden.

I dunno man.  I may gut the innards out of my Popeye cabinet and see if I can't mount an XBox One in there.

[ejamer]

Nintendo needs to fix this problem before people leave to Microsoft or Sony.  You may in short term keep loyal fans but in long term screwing over your faithful will have dire circumstances in the future.

The kind of people that want a Robin amiibo aren't the people who are just going to stop being Nintendo fans all of a sudden.

I agree, but they (ahem.. I) might be the kind of people who just stop chasing and choose not to support distribution practices that are explicitly customer-unfriendly. I'm not buying games that require Amiibo to unlock content unless those figures are very easy to find.


It's not like this is different from the Kid Icarus AR cards, or the Animal Crossing eReader cards... not much has really changed in how Nintendo is handling their business.

[UncleBob]

The Animal Crossing cards were pretty easy to find (and were even sold on N's webstore for quite a while.)

[Soren]

I agree, but they (ahem.. I) might be the kind of people who just stop chasing and choose not to support distribution practices that are explicitly customer-unfriendly. I'm not buying games that require Amiibo to unlock content unless those figures are very easy to find.

So...you're not going to buy any major first party release then? I quit the Amiibo game after the Ness debacle but I'm not going to condemn the entire company just because. I'm buying Splatoon even though I'm probably never going to get to play the 8-bit mini games because those unlock via Amiibo. I'm buying Fire Emblem even though I won't get to play the content that will inevitably be locked behind the Robin and Lucina amiibo.

[ejamer]

Didn't buy Captain Toad, and probably won't unless I can find the Toad Amiibo. [/size]Not sure if I'm buying Kirby on Wii U either, since I can't get DeDeDe or MetaKnight at anything approaching reasonable cost/effort.



Not buying Splatoon, not buying Codename S.T.E.A.M., have enough backlogged Fire Emblem that any content unlocks requiring [/size]impossible to find Amiibo figures would prevent me from buying it either.


I'm a Nintendo fan, but that doesn't mean I need to buy everything they put out there. If they put out content that is aggressively anti-consumer, as a consumer I'm going to choose not to support it.  Does Amiibo cross that line? At this point, I'd say you could argue either side...

The Animal Crossing cards were pretty easy to find (and were even sold on N's webstore for quite a while.)

They disappeared from retail locations very quickly here, and were never restocked. (Retailers told me they tried but weren't able to get more in - maybe they were lying, who knows?)  It's true you could buy the cards online from Nintendo's website, but they weren't well advertised and (at least when I saw them) not all series were available there.


Surely even you, a staunch fan and collector, can't defend how Kid Icarus cards were handled in North America.


The point remains: it shouldn't be this hard. When things are successful and people want them, and Nintendo makes a profit from selling them, it shouldn't be so difficult to make them available.

[ejamer]

(No edit option, so trying again to avoid the stupid resizing that always happens with these forums.)


Didn't buy Captain Toad, and probably won't unless I can find the Toad Amiibo. Not sure if I'm buying Kirby on Wii U either, since I can't get DeDeDe or MetaKnight at anything approaching reasonable cost/effort.


Not buying Splatoon, not buying Codename S.T.E.A.M., have enough backlogged Fire Emblem that any content unlocks requiring impossible to find Amiibo figures would prevent me from buying it either.


I'm a Nintendo fan, but that doesn't mean I need to buy everything they put out there. If they put out content that is aggressively anti-consumer, as a consumer I'm going to choose not to support it.  Does Amiibo cross that line? At this point, I'd say you could argue either side...

The Animal Crossing cards were pretty easy to find (and were even sold on N's webstore for quite a while.)

They disappeared from retail locations very quickly here, and were never restocked. (Retailers told me they tried but weren't able to get more in - maybe they were lying, who knows?)  It's true you could buy the cards online from Nintendo's website, but they weren't well advertised and (at least when I saw them) not all series were available there.


Surely even you, a staunch fan and collector, can't defend how Kid Icarus cards were handled in North America.


The point remains: it shouldn't be this hard. When things are successful and people want them, and Nintendo makes a profit from selling them, it shouldn't be so difficult to make them available.

[Phil]

I was able to find a bunch of Toad amiibo at Toys 'R Us this week. It was as full as the other Super Mario series amiibo, so I picked one up. Definitely try looking out for that, as I think Toad isn't going to be a hard to find figure anymore.

[UncleBob]

Not going to defend Kid Icarus.  Very bitter.

Toad amiibo isn't hard to find.  Saw him in two out of four stores where I looked at amibo.

But man, claiming you're not buying Captain Toad because of the amiibo?  How long was that game out before they announced the update that added amiibo support?  Were you planning to buy it before, then decided against because they added more content for free that you never have to worry about?

[Ian Sane]

If ejamer actually has dedication to boycott Amiibo supported games, good for him.  We tend to suck at voting with our wallets and put up with a lot of bullshit to get our videogame fix.  The publishers know this.  They know they can sneak in microtransactions and on disc DLC and day-one patches and online passes and DRM and in-game advertisements and all this other nonsense as long as they put enough of a game we're vaguely interested somewhere within.  Nintendo knows Amiibos are bullshit but they also know that most of us are addicted to Mario and Zelda like a drug.  We may not like Amiibos but do we dislike them enough to refuse to buy a game we otherwise are interested in?  Are we willing to suffer a little bit by not playing a game we're mostly interested in to show publishers that we won't be exploited?  No, we usually aren't and every publishers knows this and preys on it.  And the second you buy a game that has some anti-consumer nonsense in it you are endorsing it, even if you don't participate directly.  They know that whatever bullshit they squeezed in there didn't annoy their customers enough to prevent an outright purchase, so they'll push harder next time.

If anyone who didn't like Amiibos stopped buying games that supported them it might actually affect Nintendo's bottom line enough to change their business practices.  Every publisher will only be consumer friendly enough to get the sale.  If you show a very low tolerance for anti-consumer bullshit they will back down.  Despite us all being willing participants that can refuse to spend our money at any time, it too often appears that the publishers hold all the power because we seem to have very little self-control on something as unnecessary and frivolous as videogames.

[ejamer]

...
But man, claiming you're not buying Captain Toad because of the amiibo?  How long was that game out before they announced the update that added amiibo support?  Were you planning to buy it before, then decided against because they added more content for free that you never have to worry about?

Captain Toad wouldn't have been an early purchase for me regardless, but it would have been on my shelf eventually. Amiibo limited availability is annoying enough, and my backlog big enough, that any games with features locked behind a physical pay wall where the key isn't even available to buy aren't worth my time or effort. It's the principle at this point.


If the Toad Amiibo is easily available without paying scalpers I might reconsider. But I've been watching Amiibo stock online and at multiple local retailers - so far talk of more stock appearing hasn't held true here. Until availability improves I'm very content playing other games.


(This isn't a hard rule. I'll buy Xenoblade regardless of Amiibo integration.)

[Khushrenada]

Take a guess at how long it took my latest twitter account @Retail_Dalek to make a tweet about amiibo... 3 tweets...

I'm going to guess 3.

[pokepal148]

Plot Twist: NOA is currently being run by Nibris.

[broodwars]

So just to follow up on Nintendo's latest round of failure, I've been keeping an eye on my 1 nearest GameStops, my local Best Buy, and my local Walmart over the last few days. Of these 4 establishments, only one got any of this supposed Amiibo restock, and that Gamestop only got ONE Amiibo figure: an Ike Amiibo that was already reserved to a person whose pre-order was unfulfilled back in December. One Amiibo in my entire city. That's the extent of Nintendo's efforts, the culmination of their promises for the last few months. Pathetic.