Update: Just about every wave 4 amiibo that was on sale is sold out or just about sold out; Jigglypuff, Ness, Pacman, Charizard, Wario, Robin, Lucina, Inkling Boy, Inkling Girl and the Splatoon 3-pack. That means both the exclusive and non-exclusive amiibos.
Update 2: Toys R Us put up Greninija, silently at that, around 3am this morning and was sold out in about minutes.
Well as you can imagine ever since Nintendo announced that several Amiibos were going to be store exclusive; Jigglypuff, Ness and Greninja to be exact, that today and tomorrow were going to be days filled with…. you guessed it, saltiness. And there was much salt today. The day started with Jigglypuff going on sale via Target’s website and it was gone after several minutes. And if you’re just saying that you’ll get it in stores, no you won’t. It was a Target exclusive that is (at least a this time) on-line only preorder item, so you won’t be able to stroll into any Target locations to preorder it.
Currently the item is still out of stock with no idea on if and when it will be available again!
Hitting up Gamestop was even worse, as I had the unfortunate on-hand experience to witness. Gamestop announced yesterday that Ness from Earthbound, another exclusive amiibo, would be available for preorder today starting at 2PM PST/3PM EST. They later changed their tactics and stated that this would only apply to the stores and that Ness wouldn’t even be available on their website. That didn’t matter it seems. Once 2PM PST rolled around, every cash register that was connected to the Gamestop network transformed into a useless paper weight and their website crawled to a halt. Essentially, Gamestop had managed to ddos their own website due to the massive amounts of traffic that hit their web servers, which forced the company to eventually take their web facing website offline.
At the time of this article, the website is still down.
And while Gamestop did attempt to keep it to one specific amiibo per sale, it didn’t help since it took 50 minutes for the first person in line to get their order processed and another 30 for the second person. The time I got to do my order, I was only able to score Ness and the 3-pack of Splatoon characters. Everything else; Wario, Luncia and Charizard were gone and they weren’t even the exclusive characters. Gamestop was also selling a 6-pack as well that included all of the wave 4 characters, but as soon as most were sold out the package was gone. And yes, the only way to get two of the same amiibos was to purchase a 6-pack and individual amiibo.
Tomorrow will be Toys R Us’s turn at salty tear inducing as they open preorders for their own exclusive amiibo, Greninja. Nintendo might not think the demand that is there but it’s there, as I was made apparent by the people behind me who were plotting how to get their hands on him. And guess what, it’s another on-line only preorder, so we can likely expect Toys R U’s servers to experience the same melt down that Gamestop’s had, unless they are working on making sure that doesn’t happen right now.
Though something tells me that’s not going to happen.
Honestly I can’t understand why Nintendo is ding this to their audience and fans, but it’s complete madness out their folks. Amiibo craze is on just about everyone’s mind and Nintendo apparently is just throwing more fuel on the fire with their whole “store exclusive” strategy. I’ve already heard of fights breaking out regarding the sale of the amiibos, in store and out, as well as tons of them getting sold and then re-sold again on ebay for 3-4x their original asking price.
Store exclusive or not, that isn’t the issue. The issue is Nintendo is purposely forcing specific amiibos to be rare and it’s causing all of these issues. They’re freaking pieces of plastic. You didn’t see Hasbro having issues pushing G.I. Joes or Transformers that were store exclusive’s when they did it, nor has any other company had and issue on reproducing more “exclusive” items and putting them back into stores. There’s no reason why Nintendo simply can’t crank up production and make more. No, instead they tell su that after several weeks or months that they are discontinuing the figure and if you didn’t get one, well too bad.
This is all on Nintendo’s head and nothing can be done about it. And I say nothing because the the only real issue is to vote with our money and simply not buy the amiibos, but let’s face it, that’s noting to happen. Don’t expect it to get better people as we still have some of wave 4 to go and then two more waves after this, so be safe out there.
The only Amiibo that I ever really wanted was Ness. Sure, others looked cool, but Ness was the only one who really meant anything to me. I played EarthBound at a formative age, and it’s the only game that I can really say helped define who I am today – how I think about things such as hope, faith, friendship, innocence, and growing up and going through hardship without losing all of that.
That being said, I think it’s pretty cruddy that GameStop decided to open pre-ordering for a Thursday at 2 PM. Who’s available at 2 PM? Not kids – they’re in school. Not most adults – we work. You’ve got the lucky ones who work odd hours, the people who were able to get out of their job with less than a day’s notice – and people who don’t hold conventional jobs, like someone who makes a living selling off of eBay.
I rushed out to my local GameStop as soon as I got out of work. I never had a chance.
I honestly only wanted Charizard for me, my desk and office, and the splatoon 3-pack for the kids for when the game drops. Nope, only was able to score Ness, despite being 4th in line.
Store exclusive or not, that isn’t the issue. The issue is Nintendo is purposely forcing specific amiibos to be rare and it’s causing all of these issues. They’re freaking pieces of plastic. You didn’t see hasbro having issues pushing GIJoes or Transformers that were store exclusive’s when they did it, or any one else to that matter.
There’s no reason why Nintendo simply can’t crank up production and make more. No, instead they tell su that after several weeks or months that they are discontinuing the figure and if you didn’t get one, well too bad.
This is all on Nintendo’s head and nothing can be done about it.
What also bothers me is the fact that there are tons of amiibos on Ebay and while I understand the capitalism game, I still find that it’s a slap in the face for collectors and fans of Nintendo.
I give Nintendo a little bit of slack on that regard. They’re not a toy company like Hasbro, who has factories devoted to this kind of stuff; they have to go to a third party for everything. Nintendo says that it’s a months-long process to manufacture, and I believe them – the figures are extremely well-made, not the formed plastic garbage that you see with kids toys. The fact that Nintendo makes them thinking of quality and first is one of the reasons why I’m happy sinking $12 into a lump of plastic.
What seems to be the problem, though, is that they don’t seem to understand how popular their “minor” characters are and how well they’ll sell. The only Amiibos out there are the well-known, easily recognizable AAA characters for Nintendo, and that’s the problem: if I’m going to buy an Amiibo, I want it to be something special. I don’t want just Kirby sitting down, or Pikachu sitting up. Why doesn’t Nintendo realize that their fans love them for the crazy, wacky, innovative and original games they make, maybe even more than the safe, high-quality predictable things? Why not realize that, having a large variety of beloved characters, they really need to keep a large variety of Amiibos on the shelf?