Nintendo's skylander figures announced "Amiibo"

[Metal Jesus]

I really like the idea of these figures showing up in multiple Nintendo games... That's something I would love to see the Disney brand do too.

[darsparx]

If some of the classic disney characters made a cross over I would be happy. I'd love to play as mickey, donald, goofy, and professor von quack(heck even a nintendo vs disney would be amazing and I wonder why no one has done it yet)

[Retrogamer0001]

Not interested in the least.

[arcadifvid]

I'll buy DLC but I'm not buying into the inflated toy market prices.

If they want to expand game content and make additional money; that is cool with me. They just better provide the same content as a cheaper download for people who don't care about the trinkets.

I don't think the figures are going to act as DLC in any way shape or form, providing new characters or costumes. What you will see will be more in line with what they are doing with Smash Bros. With Mario Kart, it may be literally just using them to store and play ghost data, or create NPC trained racers much like the NPC trained fighters in Smash.

Eventually, it will have a full fledged game, no doubt, but I do not feel that the figures are going to create a, "pay to win," or a, "Pay to experience the full game," situation.

what i want to know is, if you load say Samus or Link on Mario Kart, do they suddenly appear as racers ?

also what bothers me is the packaging indicates "Smash Bros". Does that mean you have to get a different Mario for Smash specifically and another for Mario Kart ? That would suck big time.

[darsparx]

Well right now since smash is the only one that truly makes full use of the figures that is probably why the packaging says smash. (thinking about it though, they did a good job making me drool over zelda and peach though...dare I say they look super hot )

[Snatch1414]

This is probably a completely personal opinion but when I heard a rumor about these being in the works I pictured something different and as a result I think they missed out on some easy dollars, at least more than they'll rake in with the figures as is.

For whatever reason I was picturing 100+ figures running the entire Nintendo gamut. Hell, with the Mario and Zelda franchises alone you could probably create 50 figures that all gamers would recognize. There are a ton of iconic enemies. If you do it that way all of a sudden you basically have a Pokémon phenomenon based on the Nintendo brand. Throw in a blind box element (which I think would've doubled what they'd make off of these) and it's a friggin' cash cow, but as it stands I think it's a nifty idea that could easily succeed or fail.

Of course if you do it this way it wouldn't work exactly like they want it to with Smash Bros., but I think the current set up is incredibly short sighted. It's hard to get excited too when all you really have to offer me is "These will keep track of your character in Smash Bros and will eventually do......something.....in Mario Kart." I mean I realize most of the ideas they have are in the fledgling stages so there's no point in announcing them but it was just underwhelming to me and reeked of a potential missed opportunity.

TL;DR version: They should produce 50-100 Nintendo-themed figures and do them in a blind box format, which I believe would make them more money and be a more appealing product.

[BogusMeatFactory]

TL;DR version: They should produce 50-100 Nintendo-themed figures and do them in a blind box format, which I believe would make them more money and be a more appealing product.

That may be a more profitable format for Nintendo, but it would also really upset a lot of people interested in collecting it. I do think that Nintendo does plan on having the set figures apply to other games...not all games, but other games. Imagine a Wii U party game where your amiibo figure is your game piece like in Monopoly.

It is almost a certainty that Nintendo will release a full fledged game that utilizes the Amiibos, but just wait until a Pokemon series will come out for the amiibos...you will probably have that huge set of figures and they will serve a cool purpose for some pokemon-themed game.

[fastbilly1]

Blind box would make it a no buy for alot of people. Case in point, I plan on buying everything they release, but if they did blind box I would buy the starter set and cherry pick others on the second hand market. Sure alot of people would still buy them, but as Skylanders and Infinity have shown, the standard buy process works well for this type of device.

[darsparx]

A starter pack would actually be nice if they did it, especially if it included the 3DS adapter. I'd buy that in a heartbeat next to probably all the figures we already know about. But I'm willing to bet if these specific ones we already know about succeed then we'll probably see more follow

[Cronozilla]

From everything I've heard officially stated by Nintendo, amiibo sounds much more like an NFC figure standard, than a product line.

They flat out said, Skylanders and Disney Infinity will support amiibo during the unveiling.

This would mean that companies can produce amiibo compatible figures. It's not Nintendo IP specific, but "amiibo" will only function on Nintendo systems.

If this is indeed a specification standard and branding that Nintendo is rolling out ... as opposed to, they're just calling their toys amiibos, which I don't think is what they're doing ... that would take a significant amount of time. It's also a game changer for NFC toys. It would be the first across the board standard. Meaning, hey, if Skylanders, Disney Infinity, Whatever EA comes up with (because they will) if these are all amiibo certified, that means, you got a Wii U or a 3DS (or whatever comes next), those figures will work on those devices virtually out of the box.

In terms of how these interact, it sounds like any data can be transferred back and forth and that will have per-game determined effects. Which means, they're not limiting what the figures can actually do per game. (They're also not saying, it has some minimum functionality either, though)

I think more than anything, instead of wondering how this modifies things we already play, or wondering how much it replicates skylanders, we should be wondering ... how does this change how games can be played? Can brand new games, not previously possible be a reality?

What if tagging your pokemon amiibo on other Nintendo systems levels it up, or makes it learn abilities you couldn't learn otherwise.

They were also saying, in an interview, that, you won't have to rebuy characters. If Mario unlocks something in Smash Bros. that same Mario figure will work anywhere a Mario amiibo functions. Though, there will be specialized ones made for games, it's not like you have to buy Smash Mario for Smash and Mario Kart Mario for Mario Kart and Mario for Paper Mario ... you could just use that Smash Mario amiibo on all of them.

It sounds like they're trying to move into the physical toys area, but also not make it completely price gouging or making it pay to win.

I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens when it is introduced into other games. We're already pretty aware of what happens when it works with Smash Bros. I assume Mario Kart 8 support will roll out along with amiibo's first figures.

If the way the 3DS system junk works is any example, I think Nintendo will do some neat stuff with this outside of just it spawns Mario to help you out.