Amiibo

Toys For Bob studio and its parent company Activision offered Nintendo to become a partner in their new game series Skylanders , which used figures of characters equipped with RFID tags, and a special reader to interact with the game itself, and the figures themselves could store data, such as characteristics corresponding to the character from the game. Nintendo declined an exclusive deal, and the Skylanders series quickly became one of Activision's most popular franchises due to the launch as an offshoot of the Spyro the Dragon series and began to compete with the developers of Disney Interactive Studios , who released Disney Infinity with a similar concept in 2013 year ^{[2] [3]} .

In March 2013, long before the release of Amiibo , Nintendo introduced the Pokémon Rumble U project, which was the first Wii U game to use an NFC tag reader built into the Wii U GamePad to interact with its own set of figures ^[4] . During an investor meeting in May 2014, Nintendo showed off a prototype of the more sophisticated interactive figurine support platform for the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U consoles, which was designed to allow the same figurines to be used in multiple games. The new platform received the code name "NFP", which stands for "Nintendo Figurine Platform" ( Eng. - "Nintendo platform for figures") or "NFC Featured Platform" ( Eng. - "platform that uses NFC") and was planned to be shown at the presentation during the exhibition E3 ^[5] .

On June 10, 2014 , Nintendo officially unveiled the Amiibo platform at the E3 2014 exhibition, stating that fighting game Super Smash Bros. for Wii U will be the first game to support the integration of Amiibo figures ^[6] . As part of a corporate event after the launch of Amiibo , Nintendo game designer and top management Shigeru Miyamoto said about the future of the platform that “the company will promote projects that involve NFC technology in an interesting way. Although Nintendo is known as a video game developer, it is also a toy manufacturer ” ^[7] .

The first released series of Amiibo action figures is the Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, released on November 21 in North America, November 28 in Europe and December 6, 2014 in Japan, along with the release of the fighting game ^{[8] [9] [10]} . The second series of figures were characters of the Super Mario games: Mario , Luigi , Princess Peach , Yoshi , Bowser and Toad , which became available on March 20, 2015 ^[11] .

In 2015, Nintendo released Amiibo in other form factors, following the announcement by Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata that the company plans to issue collection cards under the Amiibo brand. On April 1, 2015, Nintendo introduced the Animal Crossing project : Happy Home Designer , which is an offshoot of the Animal Crossing series using Amiibo cards. In addition, the company featured Amiibo knitted toys as a complement to Yoshi's Woolly World ^{[12] [13] [14]} .

During the presentation of Nintendo Direct at E3 2015, Activision presented Amiibo figures of Bowser and Donkey Kong (“Hammer Slam Bowser” and “Turbo Charge Donkey Kong”), which can be used in Skylanders: SuperChargers project . These figures are compatible with both the Skylanders series games and projects supporting Amiibo thanks to the mechanical switch located in the toy stand. The figures work on all platforms where the game Skylanders: SuperChargers was released ^{[15] [16]} .

On August 27, 2015, Nintendo released the Shovel Knight Amiibo action figure, the protagonist of the indie game Shovel Knight , which can unlock exclusive content for the game version on the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U consoles. The Shoulder Knight was the first character among the released Amiibo figures that was not associated with the heroes of the games from the first-party developers for Nintendo consoles, while previous characters from third-party developers, made in the form of Amiibo , previously appeared as fighters in the Super Smash Bros series of fighting games . ^[17] . In addition, the production and distribution of toys in all regions except Japan was controlled by the developer Shovel Knight, Yacht Club Games, not Nintendo, and yet, the figure was part of the Nintendo Amiibo series. Explaining the essence of the agreement, a Nintendo spokesman stated that “we thought: what kind of thing could Nintendo do that no one else could?” ^[18] .

Before the official launch of the Amiibo line of toys, it quickly gained popularity: pre-orders exceeded the quantities purchased by stores even before the figures reached the shelves. Although Nintendo's CEO, Satoru Iwata, stated that Amiibo would be shipped in the required quantities, he also noted that some of the figures would be sold for a limited amount of time, after which they would be replaced by other series of figures ^[19] . The rarity of some Amiibo has influenced prices in online stores and at auctions, many of which have begun to offer figures at prices higher than regular stores. In the Nintendo financial report for the third quarter of 2015, Satoru Iwata expressed his surprise at the high prices of scarce Amiibo figures ^[20] . Among the first batch of Amiibo figures, several pieces with manufacturing defects were found that were subsequently sold for large sums, for example, Samus Aran figure, which had guns on both hands (instead of one), was sold at eBay for $ 2,500 , then how the Princess Peach figurine with missing legs was sold for $ 25,100 ^{[21] [22]} .

On April 2, 2015, when stores began to accept pre-orders for figures of the fourth release of Super Smash Bros., as well as sets for the game Splatoon , the online store and the cash system of the GameStop network could not cope with the number of people who wanted it, which resulted in a failure ^[23] . Nintendo recognized the onset of supply problems in early May 2015. ^{[24] [25]} Amazon abandoned the pre-order process for Amiibo batch data; instead, the store divided the release day into time intervals during which Amiibo were not exclusive to specific stores, as well as toys from the Super Mario series and a silver Mario figure ^[26] . Amazon continued this practice during the release of the exclusive character series Kid Icarus , Paluten, as well as Amiibo , which were released on September 11, 2015 ^{[27] [28]} .

In response to the shortage of certain Amiibo toys in the United States, Satoru Iwata made a statement on February 17, 2015 that “amid the ongoing labor conflict on the US West Bank, cargo unloading slowed down in the last 6 months,” which caused the absence of the Amiibo that was supposed ship to their release in November ^[29] . Following this announcement, some of the rarer figures, such as Wii Fit Trainer, Methane, and Ike, were again limitedly available for purchase in North America ^[30] . The Best Buy chain of stores, which has become the exclusive seller of the Dark Pete figurine, has announced that it will not accept pre-orders or online orders for this Amiibo , and that the number of figures sold will be limited to one per buyer. While some gaming publications, such as Kotaku , supported the Best Buy solution ^[31] , other journalists, such as the leading Nintendo Voice Chat podcast on IGN, Brian Altano, Jose Otero and Pir Schneider advised American collectors to import instead figures that are difficult to find in the USA ^[32] .

The Wii U consoles, New Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Switch, have a built-in NFC reader and can interact with Amiibo . On Wii U, the data stored in the figures can be read using a reader located in the Wii U GamePad controller . Amiibo support was added to the console firmware with updates between November and December 2014. After the release of these updates, the Amiibo item appeared in the system menu, using which players can scan, register and delete data from the figures. Nintendo Switch has a similar reader in the Joy-Con right controller, as well as in the Pro Controller gamepad ^{[33] [34] [35]} .

For the original Nintendo 3DS, 3DS XL and 2DS handheld consoles that did not support NFC technology, Nintendo released the separate Nintendo 3DS NFC Reader / Writer accessory, which also allows you to interact with Amiibo . Initially, the device went on sale in Japan in the summer of 2015, and then was released in North America with the game Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer ^[36] . Newer Nintendo handheld game systems such as New Nintendo 3DS, New 3DS XL, and New 2DS XL have a built-in NFC reader located under the touch screen ^[37] .

Games supporting Amiibo can have one of two ways of interacting with figures: a program can read data from an NFC chip and store information on it or be read-only. Each Amiibo toy is usually used in one specific game, which can use the data storage on the chip, although some of the figures can be supported by several games. However, Amiibo can only store data from one compatible game at a time, which means that the data must be deleted before being used in another game. For example, the data recorded on the figure of Mario in the fighting game Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U, must be deleted before recording information from the game Mario Party 10 ^[38] . Most Amiibo- enabled games are only read-level compatible and thus unlock additional content in games. For example, using certain figures in Mario Kart 8 or Mario Kart 8 Deluxe unlocks avatar costumes -Mii in the style of a read figure. Different variations of the same character have the same functionality in games, although alternative styles of figures can unlock specific content in certain games. Games released under Wii U and Nintendo 3DS can be updated by developers and begin to recognize Amiibo ^[39] . Due to a partnership with Nintendo during the development of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U, Bandai Namco Entertainment was the first third-party publisher to begin promoting the Amiibo concept in its projects ^[40] .