That has to be some stockroom employee stealing shit, right? No store would willingly sell all their stock to one jerk and deal with the customer service complaints of things not in stock?
It's kind of amusing when people say things like "Nintendo is only hurting themselves" and "People won't take it."
Nintendo has been doing this kind of thing for years. So many, many years dating back to their first console. You think this is new? That people won't accept short supply on toys and gadgets? They've been accepting it from the very beginning and not only has Nintendo not died but it's a hulking leviathan.
I think Nintendo should be firing some VPs and stuff soon if they don't get all these supply issues (even with things like GC controller adapters) fixed. At some point, they have to realize that they are hurting themselves that they have people who want to buy their stuff, but the impression to the customer is "fuck you". Eventually people are going to give up. Not to mention, they've allowed 3rd parties to encroach and make money off them (in the case of the GC adapters, there's tons of 3rd party solutions now).
What? I fail to see how firing anyone would help anything.
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It's kind of amusing when people say things like "Nintendo is only hurting themselves" and "People won't take it."
Nintendo has been doing this kind of thing for years. So many, many years dating back to their first console. You think this is new? That people won't accept short supply on toys and gadgets? They've been accepting it from the very beginning and not only has Nintendo not died but it's a hulking leviathan.
People won't though. They'll either buy the scalped versions or go 3rd party route, if that is available, or lose interest and buy neither.
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Psychotic OneThe Lord of No PantsParts UnknownRegistered Userregular
Part of me thinks they are killing long term interest in Amiibos by making them so arbitrarilly rare. Future Wii U / 3DS owners wont want to buy into them because all the Smash guys are out of print except Donkey Kong, Mario, and 4000 Pikachu.
If they wanted to do a 1st printing type thing then under the bottom of the base marking it as a first edition then maybe 3 months later do the mass market release so everyone gets a chance at it. Maybe do exclusive paint jobs and stuff but the base figure should be readily available after x amount of time.
Down here in Mexico, the Majora special edition preorders sold out in 30 minutes.
One day before release, some asshole posts in a local trading group, a picture of 18 special editions, from inside a game store, offering each for $215.
yea I mean the thing with the Amiibo's and the GC adapter is that it seems like they are just arbitrarily limiting how many they make. With something like the new 3DS XL They seem to be making quite a number of them but just selling them all. (the port strike in the US also clouds this launch. Would there have been more in the chain if the ports were open?). Go all the way back to the Wii and they were selling them out for 2 years, and it wasn't for lack of trying. Nintendo was making those as fast as possible and still couldn't keep them on the shelves.
There is a difference between not being able to make enough units and not making enough units. Nintendo is doing the latter with Amiibo while they usually end up with the former for consoles/portables.
I think the port strike is the main problem (or was) recently. Up here in Canada I've seen Toon Link, Shulk & Black and Red New 3ds consoles on the shelves. Granted the New 3ds is sold out in a bunch of places, but it's not the shortage it sounds like in the US. I'm really hoping this is the case with the Amiibos and that Wave 4 will ship in abundance.
edit: I'm just referring to the last couple of weeks. The Amiibo situation for wave 1 & 2 and the exclusives was silly.
I think Nintendo should be firing some VPs and stuff soon if they don't get all these supply issues (even with things like GC controller adapters) fixed. At some point, they have to realize that they are hurting themselves that they have people who want to buy their stuff, but the impression to the customer is "fuck you". Eventually people are going to give up. Not to mention, they've allowed 3rd parties to encroach and make money off them (in the case of the GC adapters, there's tons of 3rd party solutions now).
What? I fail to see how firing anyone would help anything.
The people running Nintendo are clearly bonkers. Like "lets sell NFC figurines of our popular characters that can fight inside the game, but not make nearly enough to reach the demand, even though it's incredibly obvious a fairly cheap high quality figurine of our characters will sell like gangbusters, not to mention you can actually use them in the game, meaning not only collectors but also kids and game playing people will want them." And why are they doing that? What are their reasons for this? Because this could have made them a helluva lot more money. Hell, sell the things at 20 instead of 12. Clearly people will buy them.
So, what is their reasoning beyond "i dunno this seemed like a fun thing we didn't think anyone would care about it because we have no concept of what people like about our stuff"? They didn't have enough plastic? They didn't bother to do a demand assessment before deciding how many to make? There's secretly thousands of them in a warehouse and they are just waiting a few months to build demand by artificial scarcity? Hell I tried to buy a gold Mario because it was a few minutes after someone posted them being up and why the hell not since it's basically worth actual gold!
Moving around some VPs and putting some people who are aware of these issues and want to fix them would be awesome. There's still no good reason Nintendo won't let me give them money for SNES VC titles on the 3DS.
What @TelMarine said is very accurate about the impression to the customer. Nintendo feels incredibly out of touch and honestly this seems super incompetent. I don't know who made these decisions, but I really want to know why they did it this way.
@Madican Nintendo is hurting themselves, absolutely. Sure they have tons of money and are fairly stable, but to say this isn't hurting them (Opportunity cost of unsold amiibos, hearts and minds, etc.) seems crazy. Nintendo has done very well in spite of the terrible decisions they make. (Remember the Virtual Boy?)
I kind of think we are done with store exclusives other than these variant figures like Gold Mario. It just makes more sense to do them that way. Plus I'm sure most retailers are pissed at Nintendo for getting such low stock of their exclusive.
.... ? what makes you think they are done? One of the reasons amibo's are still news is because of their collectability and if every store had every one available it would quickly become just another toy.
It's not that Nintendo's out of touch, it's that they're incredibly cautious. They didn't want to be stuck with huge numbers of plastic figures of obscure characters no one wanted to buy, so they limited the numbers to limit the risk. Or so the thinking goes. And on paper, it makes sense. I mean, if I went back in time to before launch and told you that Animal Crossing Villager would be one of the most in-demand figures, you'd have all thought I had gone insane.
Plus, the scarcity of a few of the characters plus the added problem of the port strike created a perfect storm of speculation and excitement that likely drove demand much higher than it would have normally been. It's like Beanie Babies all over again -- people who wouldn't have normally given a shit about a toy bear were going bonkers trying to get a purple one before they sell out and are gone forever.
All that being said, I have no idea if Nintendo's being irresponsible with not printing more or not. It could be the logistics of trying to secure factory space to make more of a certain model after it's a surprise hit when they've already allocated it to the next model is hard to work around. Or maybe it's not -- I have no idea what the logistics of ordering overseas manufacturing is like.
That has to be some stockroom employee stealing shit, right? No store would willingly sell all their stock to one jerk and deal with the customer service complaints of things not in stock?
Can't speak for all stores but Target has a history of not giving a single fuck about this sort of thing. For example, they frequently break release dates for Magic the Gathering cards and other collectible games, and when people call them on it... nothing.
I don't think people realize how different Japanese companies view some things. I'm by no means an expert (I did live in Japan for almost two years so I'm not completely ignorant either).
Nintendo generally is much more in touch with is what is happening in Japan. Amiibo's are not the crazy sellers there that they are here.
Nintendo is also a very cautious company. While they want to make large profits, they don't like to take large risks in areas they aren't comfortable in. The figure market is new to them and their biggest fear was sitting on a crap ton of Amiibos that nobody wants to buy (which has happened - they've discounted 3 Amiibos. When does Nintendo discount anything 3 months after release - aside from the 3DS).
Nintendo was likely terrified of what happened with the UDraw. (destructoid.com/thq-blames-56-million-loss-on-udraw-221032.phtml) I also suspect that their profit per Amiibo sold isn't terribly high. Which means having boxes of unsold Amiibos could be very expensive.
Of course at the end of the day they also know that most of their fans might complain, but they're not likely to stop buying Nintendo software/consoles because they couldn't get the Amiibos they wanted. That and if they made Fierce Diety Link unlockable only through a special Link amiibo for Zelda Wii U there would be a line around the block of people waiting to buy it (most of whom had sworn off Amiibo.)
Nintendo's original fear was that all figures would mimic what Donkey Kong, Yoshi and Peach are going through now. However, they need to calibrate their plans with the realization that people are willing to buy way more of these than I er uh, they* should.
Yeah, Nintendo fucked up in the opposite direction with DK, Peach and Yoshi -- Nintendo never drops prices that quick unless something's gone badly wrong. Though what's bad for them is good for us in this case.
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
I kind of think we are done with store exclusives other than these variant figures like Gold Mario. It just makes more sense to do them that way. Plus I'm sure most retailers are pissed at Nintendo for getting such low stock of their exclusive.
.... ? what makes you think they are done? One of the reasons amibo's are still news is because of their collectability and if every store had every one available it would quickly become just another toy.
Because it's not in Nintendo's best interest to have specific characters that are impossible to find. Like, they use Meta Knight in a game but no one can get one now. On the other hand, if you can't get a gold Mario, oh well, use regular Mario.
I think the wave 3 figures was Nintendo testing the waters with exclusives before they had anything like Gold Mario ready and we all know how terrible that worked out.
Edit: Also, frankly, I'm just sick of everyone always assuming the worst, like Nintendo going to store exclusive card form just to piss on the fans because they are evil or something. Too many damn people are completely cynical when it comes to this stuff.
Looks like Toad just went back up on Best Buy's website (and sold out? Maybe?) but they had a limit of one. (Per order, account, or address I dunno)
I don't know how most of you feel, but I figure limit 1 is good for pre-orders. Reddit tends to jump on people who suggest that because so many people on the amiibo reddit order 2 at a time.
Nintendo's original fear was that all figures would mimic what Donkey Kong, Yoshi and Peach are going through now. However, they need to calibrate their plans with the realization that people are willing to buy way more of these than I er uh, they* should.
Nintendo's original fear was that all figures would mimic what Donkey Kong, Yoshi and Peach are going through now. However, they need to calibrate their plans with the realization that people are willing to buy way more of these than I er uh, they* should.
Wait, what's going on with DK, Yoshi and Peach?
They're down to ten bucks, presumably because they made too many of them.
Weirdly enough they're still semi-pricey on Amazon, but they're still beefing with Nintendo so who knows.
I feel like Amazon (at least in Canada) isn't helping the perception of Amiibo value. Amazon.ca still is sold out of Toon Link, Sheik, Sonic, and Samus (so it shows the 3rd party sellers selling the figures for anywhere from $25-50). Yet you can easily walk into most Bestbuys, Futureshops or Walmarts and grab any of those figures for MRSP.
Nintendo's original fear was that all figures would mimic what Donkey Kong, Yoshi and Peach are going through now. However, they need to calibrate their plans with the realization that people are willing to buy way more of these than I er uh, they* should.
Wait, what's going on with DK, Yoshi and Peach?
They're down to ten bucks, presumably because they made too many of them.
Weirdly enough they're still semi-pricey on Amazon, but they're still beefing with Nintendo so who knows.
Oh, I was assuming that was because Yoshi and Peach were soon going to be replaced with Mario Party figures.
Nintendo's original fear was that all figures would mimic what Donkey Kong, Yoshi and Peach are going through now. However, they need to calibrate their plans with the realization that people are willing to buy way more of these than I er uh, they* should.
Wait, what's going on with DK, Yoshi and Peach?
They're down to ten bucks, presumably because they made too many of them.
Weirdly enough they're still semi-pricey on Amazon, but they're still beefing with Nintendo so who knows.
Oh, I was assuming that was because Yoshi and Peach were soon going to be replaced with Mario Party figures.
It's probably not just that, since Mario's still $13.
But connecting the others to Mario Party's a good point -- clear out the soft-selling figures before their second models come out.
Nintendo's original fear was that all figures would mimic what Donkey Kong, Yoshi and Peach are going through now. However, they need to calibrate their plans with the realization that people are willing to buy way more of these than I er uh, they* should.
Wait, what's going on with DK, Yoshi and Peach?
They're down to ten bucks, presumably because they made too many of them.
Weirdly enough they're still semi-pricey on Amazon, but they're still beefing with Nintendo so who knows.
Oh, I was assuming that was because Yoshi and Peach were soon going to be replaced with Mario Party figures.
It's probably not just that, since Mario's still $13.
But connecting the others to Mario Party's a good point -- clear out the soft-selling figures before their second models come out.
Well, keep in mind that, as far as I can tell, Mario is only being sold via the MP10 bundle at launch.
I'm sure he'll get a separate release down the line though.
Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
I don't think they'll price drop Mario regardless. Even if there is a ton of leftover stock, it doesn't look bad to see a bunch of Marios on the shelves. He is their flagship character after all. It does look bad to see walls of Peach and Donkey Kong though. Especially when Nintendo is about to add MORE stock (at least for Peach and Yoshi, though I'm sure DK is coming next).
Something that's definitely not helping is how stupid web stores are being.
-Pick random time
-Put up ~20 stock
-Don't limit it to 1 a customer
-Sell out in 2 minutes
-Repeat
Nobody has a chance under this fucking stupid system. Even if there weren't scalpers and it was limited to 1 a customer, putting up that low a stock will still sell out in minutes.
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
edited February 2015
Mega Man is showing up all over. As I said before, he's not gonna be rare :P At least, as far as amiibos go (they are all kind of rare, except Peach :P)
Psychotic OneThe Lord of No PantsParts UnknownRegistered Userregular
Found a Bowser today that didn't have any weird paint mistakes. So yay
Couldn't find a Dedede or Metaknight. And none of the Best Buys in my area have any in transit or on order. Descending into madness and have resolved if they make a Nightmare or Zero Amiibo I'm preordering them instantly.
Comforted myself with a light activated Alien bobber. Not Kirby related but it comforts me.
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Nintendo has been doing this kind of thing for years. So many, many years dating back to their first console. You think this is new? That people won't accept short supply on toys and gadgets? They've been accepting it from the very beginning and not only has Nintendo not died but it's a hulking leviathan.
What? I fail to see how firing anyone would help anything.
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People won't though. They'll either buy the scalped versions or go 3rd party route, if that is available, or lose interest and buy neither.
If they wanted to do a 1st printing type thing then under the bottom of the base marking it as a first edition then maybe 3 months later do the mass market release so everyone gets a chance at it. Maybe do exclusive paint jobs and stuff but the base figure should be readily available after x amount of time.
One day before release, some asshole posts in a local trading group, a picture of 18 special editions, from inside a game store, offering each for $215.
There is a difference between not being able to make enough units and not making enough units. Nintendo is doing the latter with Amiibo while they usually end up with the former for consoles/portables.
edit: I'm just referring to the last couple of weeks. The Amiibo situation for wave 1 & 2 and the exclusives was silly.
The people running Nintendo are clearly bonkers. Like "lets sell NFC figurines of our popular characters that can fight inside the game, but not make nearly enough to reach the demand, even though it's incredibly obvious a fairly cheap high quality figurine of our characters will sell like gangbusters, not to mention you can actually use them in the game, meaning not only collectors but also kids and game playing people will want them." And why are they doing that? What are their reasons for this? Because this could have made them a helluva lot more money. Hell, sell the things at 20 instead of 12. Clearly people will buy them.
So, what is their reasoning beyond "i dunno this seemed like a fun thing we didn't think anyone would care about it because we have no concept of what people like about our stuff"? They didn't have enough plastic? They didn't bother to do a demand assessment before deciding how many to make? There's secretly thousands of them in a warehouse and they are just waiting a few months to build demand by artificial scarcity? Hell I tried to buy a gold Mario because it was a few minutes after someone posted them being up and why the hell not since it's basically worth actual gold!
Moving around some VPs and putting some people who are aware of these issues and want to fix them would be awesome. There's still no good reason Nintendo won't let me give them money for SNES VC titles on the 3DS.
What @TelMarine said is very accurate about the impression to the customer. Nintendo feels incredibly out of touch and honestly this seems super incompetent. I don't know who made these decisions, but I really want to know why they did it this way.
@Madican Nintendo is hurting themselves, absolutely. Sure they have tons of money and are fairly stable, but to say this isn't hurting them (Opportunity cost of unsold amiibos, hearts and minds, etc.) seems crazy. Nintendo has done very well in spite of the terrible decisions they make. (Remember the Virtual Boy?)
.... ? what makes you think they are done? One of the reasons amibo's are still news is because of their collectability and if every store had every one available it would quickly become just another toy.
Plus, the scarcity of a few of the characters plus the added problem of the port strike created a perfect storm of speculation and excitement that likely drove demand much higher than it would have normally been. It's like Beanie Babies all over again -- people who wouldn't have normally given a shit about a toy bear were going bonkers trying to get a purple one before they sell out and are gone forever.
All that being said, I have no idea if Nintendo's being irresponsible with not printing more or not. It could be the logistics of trying to secure factory space to make more of a certain model after it's a surprise hit when they've already allocated it to the next model is hard to work around. Or maybe it's not -- I have no idea what the logistics of ordering overseas manufacturing is like.
Can't speak for all stores but Target has a history of not giving a single fuck about this sort of thing. For example, they frequently break release dates for Magic the Gathering cards and other collectible games, and when people call them on it... nothing.
Nintendo generally is much more in touch with is what is happening in Japan. Amiibo's are not the crazy sellers there that they are here.
Nintendo is also a very cautious company. While they want to make large profits, they don't like to take large risks in areas they aren't comfortable in. The figure market is new to them and their biggest fear was sitting on a crap ton of Amiibos that nobody wants to buy (which has happened - they've discounted 3 Amiibos. When does Nintendo discount anything 3 months after release - aside from the 3DS).
Nintendo was likely terrified of what happened with the UDraw. (destructoid.com/thq-blames-56-million-loss-on-udraw-221032.phtml) I also suspect that their profit per Amiibo sold isn't terribly high. Which means having boxes of unsold Amiibos could be very expensive.
Of course at the end of the day they also know that most of their fans might complain, but they're not likely to stop buying Nintendo software/consoles because they couldn't get the Amiibos they wanted. That and if they made Fierce Diety Link unlockable only through a special Link amiibo for Zelda Wii U there would be a line around the block of people waiting to buy it (most of whom had sworn off Amiibo.)
Because it's not in Nintendo's best interest to have specific characters that are impossible to find. Like, they use Meta Knight in a game but no one can get one now. On the other hand, if you can't get a gold Mario, oh well, use regular Mario.
I think the wave 3 figures was Nintendo testing the waters with exclusives before they had anything like Gold Mario ready and we all know how terrible that worked out.
Edit: Also, frankly, I'm just sick of everyone always assuming the worst, like Nintendo going to store exclusive card form just to piss on the fans because they are evil or something. Too many damn people are completely cynical when it comes to this stuff.
I don't know how most of you feel, but I figure limit 1 is good for pre-orders. Reddit tends to jump on people who suggest that because so many people on the amiibo reddit order 2 at a time.
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Wait, what's going on with DK, Yoshi and Peach?
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They're down to ten bucks, presumably because they made too many of them.
Weirdly enough they're still semi-pricey on Amazon, but they're still beefing with Nintendo so who knows.
Oh, I was assuming that was because Yoshi and Peach were soon going to be replaced with Mario Party figures.
Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
Fuck me. The one time I actually excuse myself from the computer it goes up. And that in stock alert bullshit doesn't do anything.
It's probably not just that, since Mario's still $13.
But connecting the others to Mario Party's a good point -- clear out the soft-selling figures before their second models come out.
Well, keep in mind that, as far as I can tell, Mario is only being sold via the MP10 bundle at launch.
I'm sure he'll get a separate release down the line though.
Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
-Pick random time
-Put up ~20 stock
-Don't limit it to 1 a customer
-Sell out in 2 minutes
-Repeat
Nobody has a chance under this fucking stupid system. Even if there weren't scalpers and it was limited to 1 a customer, putting up that low a stock will still sell out in minutes.
With this, perhaps we should now call you King-- nay, Emperor Dededededede.
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How about you buy the other one for me and I send you the money for it? :P
Couldn't find a Dedede or Metaknight. And none of the Best Buys in my area have any in transit or on order. Descending into madness and have resolved if they make a Nightmare or Zero Amiibo I'm preordering them instantly.
Comforted myself with a light activated Alien bobber. Not Kirby related but it comforts me.
I'll go back tomorrow and see if it's still there.
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