amiibo

We were introduced to the yarn Yoshi amiibo at E3, but nothing could have prepared us for this cuteness.

According to Nintendo Life, Nintendo will release a giant, 'mega' version of the adorable thing:

The Yarn Yoshi amiibo triplicate was a great move by Nintendo - it brought the idea of toys-to-life into actual toys that aren't glorified statuettes. Three clearly wasn't enough though, as now we can expect a giant variation of these adorable critters to arrive in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand in November.

The amiibo has identical functionality in Yoshi's Woolly World to its standard-sized cohorts, spawning a second Yoshi to be controlled in tandem to your main dinosaur pal. The amiibo chip is contained in this one's foot rather than its base, and it stands at roughly two and a half to three times the height of the previous three.

Oh my god, look at it:



Although it's a few months after the release of Yoshi's Wolly World, it still melts our hearst.

ROB, Duck Hunt, Mr Game and Watch, Falco, and the Mii Fighters have all been confirmed as upcoming Smash Bros Amiibo.  Additionally, Nintendo of Europe's official site slipped up and gave us a glimpse of new Mario Maker and Animal Crossing Amiibo that have yet to be announced.  

Back to official news, Nintendo announced Street Fighter's Ryu joining Smash Bros as a fighter, as well as Roy from Fire Emblem.  Ryu for either version of the game will run you $5.99, or get him for both versions for $6.99.  Included with that purchase is a new stage from Street Fighter, Suzaku Castle.  Roy is available for $3.99 for either version, or $4.99 for both Wii U and 3DS packaged together.  Both character DLCs plus the previously announced Lucas are available now (for $3.99/4.99).  Eventually, all Smash fighters will have corresponding Amiibos.

More paid DLC announced today includes new costume for the Mii fighters, and the Dreamland stage from N64.  If you want all of the DLC Nintendo announced today, it'll cost a total of $21.96 for either or $29.16 for a Wii U/3DS bundle.

There's also a new free Miiverse stage available today, and "Tourney mode," which will come out for free in August.  

Nintendo released an official statement about the current state of amiibo.  In short, they're sorry they mucked it up, and they'll try to do better next time.  The statement follows in full below:

We appreciate the enthusiasm that our fans continue to show toward amiibo. Sales for the product have exceeded our expectations. We understand how frustrating it can be at times if consumers are unable to find certain figures, and we apologize for that.

We’re trying to meet the demands of our fans and consumers by increasing the amount of amiibo we manufacture and ship to retail. We may continue to see consumer demand outpace supply levels for certain characters at times, but we will do our best to prevent that from happening.

As our library of amiibo continues to grow, some figures will be easier to find than others. We are constantly looking for the opportunity to reissue amiibo and are already making plans to bring back some currently out-of-stock amiibo figures. Stay tuned for details.

Nintendo plans to make it easier for consumers to know when new amiibo are on the way, through Nintendo press announcements, timely updates on our social media channels and working closely with retailers.

We remain committed to keeping amiibo affordable and easy to access as a platform to enhance game-play experiences. These plans include Animal Crossing amiibo cards that will become available by the end of 2015, and a free-to-download app for Wii U called amiibo tap: Nintendo’s Greatest Bits that launched on April 30, 2015, that lets consumers enjoy playable scenes from certain NES and Super NES games with amiibo.

Official details about the golden Mario amiibo have finally been released!  The Super Mario amiibo—Gold Edition will be sold exclusively at 3,000 Walmart stores in the U.S. at a retail price of $12.96.  The gold amiibos launch with Mario Party 10 on March 20, 2015.  Also arriving on that day is a special new ‘wave’ Mario bundled with Mario Party 10.

Pre-order one here!

There are two ways to look at this news:
1) Whoa cool, what a neat and unique amiibo!  I sure would love to have one.
2) NOOOOOO I'm never going to be able to get my hands on it.  I might as well just curl up in a ball and die now.

Choose your own adventure, I suppose.  And expect to see a silver one as well.

In their third quarter financial results briefing, Nintendo revealed they've sold 5.7 million amiibos and described plans to expand the functionality of the figurines:

We are also planning a free-download app for Wii U in which you can enjoy NES and Super NES games with your amiibo in the first half of this year.With this app, once you tap your amiibo on the NFC area of the GamePad, you will be able to play highlighted scenes of one certain title for NES or Super NES. You cannot play the entire game due to a time limit, but another tap of the amiibo will enable you to try another highlighted scene in the game. We hope that when you tap your amiibo, the quickly changing game scenes will pleasantly surprise you and make you feel as though you have just exchanged a game cartridge.

Other fun facts revealed about amiibos include sales ranking charts:


Go Link go!

Smash Bros creator Masahiro Sakurai recently took to Twitter to say he's been unable to get his hands on some new Amiibos.  According to the rough translation of his tweet, Meta Knight, Lucario, and Rosalina were all sold out when he went to buy one during his lunch break.  Don't worry Sakurai, we know that feel.

UPDATE: Daily Dose aka mariotehplumber has issued an "apology" and retirement video stating the whole thing was an act, and he's quitting this persona. Take it as you will. Original post is below:

In an interview with Nintendo Nuggets, extreme troll and Bitter Betty "Daily Dose" reveals he's already pre-ordered 100 Rosalina Amiibo figurines because he hates her, and he doesn't want you to feel any joy.  No, really:

[It's] a vengeance against the people who ridiculed me, insulted me, and are fans of stuff I hate. I do not appreciate Rosalina appearing in almost every recent Mario game to date this is pissing me off. Lets see… Mk8, Mario golf on 3ds as Dlc, 3dworld as a secret character, Smash bros 4, and more recently Mario Party 10. The fact Nintendo promotes her so much and people praise her is just disgusting. I hate her fans too I know for a fact her amiibo will be among one of the most popular which is why I took the time to wait and preorder over 100 of her. I do not want her fans to be happy I hate Rosalina as a character and I will enjoy selling her for big bucks.

He's already spent $4,000 buying up Amiibos, and has $35,000 budgeted towards his cause.  Daily Dose resells the figures at exorbitant prices, making sure you have to pay, literally and figuratively, for liking a character he hates.  In addition to the characters he's already collected, Daily Dose plans to take out his rage on other Amiibos when the time comes: "Lucina(loose in ya),Palutena(Pootytanga),Robin(Throbbin) and Zero suit samus(Zero suit Slunt)."  He says, "I really hate these characters and it just crushes me Nintendo from the good days went to this s**t for character designs."

YouTuber Mema Haxx posted the above video of a Duck Hunt Duo amiibo.  The video doesn't show Duck Hunt dog in action, but he also posted a similar video of a Game and Watch amiibo that includes creation, editing, and levelling the character (check it out below).  Presumably, Mema Haxx is using a modified NFC chip to get the game to detect data for unannounced characters that are already on the disk. Nintendo hasn't announced amiibo figures for either character, but it's entirely possible that we'll see them in the future, especially given the success of amiibo so far. Keep your fingers crossed if you're hoping for more Smash amiibos.

I wish I was kidding.

In a statement to Wired, Nintendo commented on the seeming lack of restocking for some Amiibo characters, confirming that some 'less popular' figures will not se a second run of production:

We will aim for certain amiibo to always be available. These will be for our most popular characters like Mario and Link. Due to shelf space constraints, other figures likely will not return to the market once they have sold through their initial shipment.

If you want a character that isn't so popular, you might want to go out and get one now, otherwise you may find yourself forced to pay exorbitant prices on eBay.

February's amiibo figurines are: Toon Link, Sheik, Ike, Shulk, Lucario, Meta Knight, King Dedede, Rosalina, Bowser, Sonic, and Mega Man, though some of them will be retailer exclusives.