Nintendo’s Amiibo Toys are Turning Into Serious Collectibles
(Nintendo)
Nintendo characters like Mario, Kirby, and Link have long thrilled fans. But these days, it isn’t just their games that have players rummaging through their wallets.
It’s their figurines.
Introduced in November to coincide with the release of Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U, Nintendo’s Amiibo toy line lets players access new features, abilities, and characters in various Nintendo games. And it’s ballooned into a bona fide hit, creating a hot secondary market for the company’s products.
Nintendo has been coy about specific sales numbers, but according to their Q3 financials, the company sold 5.7 million Amiibo figurines globally through the end of 2014.
At about $13 per Amiibo, that’s hardly chump change. But more encouraging for the company is that demand doesn’t seem to be letting up. The third wave of figures, which includes Amiibo takes on Mega Man, Sonic the Hedgehog, and the Toon Link from The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, just arrived, and the fourth wave is due this spring. Nintendo is aiming to keep collectors busy.
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And that’s turning out to be the target demographic here. Nintendo says it doesn’t know how many people are actually using their Amiibos in games, but a market has emerged for obsessive gamers who simply want a complete collection. Just like with Pokémon, they want to catch ’em all.
Retailers can’t keep the products in stock, and in turn, certain Amiibos are commanding exorbitant prices on eBay. For instance, a first-wave set featuring Marth, the Wii Fit Trainer, and the Animal Crossing Villager recently sold for $300 at auction. The Villager alone will cost you $90 on Amazon.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you’re lucky enough to have bought an Amiibo that has a defect, hold on to it. A Samus figure that featured the Metroid heroine with two arm cannons rather than her usual one fetched $2,500. A legless Princess Peach Amiibo sold in December for a whopping $25,100, with over 100 bids.
No legs? No problem.
Nintendo’s goosing the prices in that secondary market by saying it will discontinue certain figures but refusing to say which ones. It’s a diabolical message — buy them now before they’re gone forever — but it’s certainly effective.
The company might be going even bigger by releasing gold and silver variants. While these have yet to be officially announced, the variant business has played out well for Activision’s Skylanders franchise. The release of a limited number of gold figurines for Skylanders: Swap Force in 2013 sold out almost instantly. Even today, collectors are paying $630 for a single figure.
Unlike Skylanders figures or fellow video game/toy hybrid Disney Infinity, however, Amiibos aren’t tied to a specific franchise. While they currently work in just a handful of titles (including Super Smash Bros., Hyrule Warriors, Mario Kart 8, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, and the newly released Kirby and the Rainbow Curse), more Amiibo-compatible games are coming. It’s a smart way to keep the figurines in the public consciousness year-round.
The Amiibo craze has been a beacon for Nintendo in what’s otherwise been a shaky couple of years, financially speaking. The Wii U console has famously struggled, and despite a terrific games lineup this past holiday, the company sold fewer systems in third-quarter 2014 than in the prior year. Sales have slowed for the 3DS handheld as well, prompting the company to release a new model. Unsurprisingly, it’s equipped to handle Amiibo figures.
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To keep the ball rolling, Nintendo is mulling changes to the Amiibo line. Smaller, more affordable Amiibos are in the works. One other possible direction? Noncharacter Amiibos.
"We do not think Amiibo always needs to take the form of a figure, either," said Nintendo president Satoru Iwata in an earnings discussion late last year. “We believe that Amiibo could take a variety of different forms.”
The company could also follow the path blazed by the card game Magic: The Gathering, says senior managing director and legendary game maker Shigeru Miyamoto.
"The Amiibo product range will also include cards in the future," he said in that same earnings discussion. "For example, when Amiibo become cards, we can create a game which can be played only by passing several cards over the NFC reader/writer, and the results will be stored in the Amiibo card. I cannot discuss any of the details [now], but Amiibo has the potential to propose new ways to play card games. … We plan to use Amiibo to create new ways to play.”
And new ways to drive collectors crazy.
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