Amiibo Market To Get Worse Before It Gets Better
Odds are, if you’re into collecting Amiibo, you saw the above image and your heart sank into the pits of despair. You KNOW getting that is going to be a problem, don’t you? Either that, or you already posted about five pre-order eBay listings before you finished reading this sentence.
These special gold and silver editions of the Mario Amiibo have not actually been announced yet. The images were leaked on Nintendo’s website by accident, then picked up and spread by the media before the picture could be removed. With no official word from the company, no one really knows how these Amiibo are to be obtained. Retail? Giveaway? Exclusive? At least we know it can’t be through Club Nintendo.
As for the Amiibo releases we can confirm, the next line of Amiibo, the Super Mario line, is scheduled to go on sale March 20. It will be based on Mario Party 10 and feature new models of Mario, Luigi, Peach and others. The next wave of Smash Bros. themed Amiibo, including Ness, Charizard, Wario and Pac-Man, will be sold later this spring.
One wonders: if Amiibo that DON’T have “Limited Edition” printed on their packaging are so hard to find, just how difficult will it be to track THESE down? Take heart in this, though: these gold and silver variants are not a special individual mold, but repaints of the Mario Amiibo that will be sold for Mario Party 10. That means the market will inevitably be flooded with fake versions of these figures, driving down the price you can get for a real one. Everyone will suffer — the casual collector and the scalper alike.
Jeffrey Harris
February 5, 2015 @ 6:55 pm
I can't fault Nintendo for this. It's a shrewd move, but consumers will eat it up.