August 13, 2016|
Scroll to the very bottom for the podcast links!
Welcome to episode 19 of SourceCast and this time we have another super-short episode for you. With our lowest participation count so far, this time only Nantendo and SmashChu are present as they discuss the current situation of amiibo and what Nintendo will need to do if they ever hope to relight the passion of fans. Before this we establish our relationship with amiibo though as well as talk about its history from the mass shortages when it launched to the introduction of amiibo cards last year. Its short, sweet and a good listen so I hope everyone enjoys!
Relevant articles
History of amiibo – LIQUID12A
The Great amiibo Shortage – SmashChu
Audio edited by
Starring:
Honestly, I always secretly enjoyed the terror that was the amiibo wars.
I guess I enjoyed the hunt of waiting for preorders and sharing with friends, not at all their use, since they aren’t as game necessary as it seems.
And now, especially since amiibo have actually become so much more available and affordable, and the introduction of amiibo cards, that now would be cool to have a full-on game that semi-uses amiibo.
I thought of something like Nintendo Wars (just borrowing the name), with an amiibo focus. You can still get various Nintendo characters in game, but Amiibo’s and amiibo cards could have various benefits and could be used in a multiplayer like way.
Just a cool tactical game to show some use for amiibos.
I really do like the idea, and it’s a novelty I enjoy, but I guess Smash amiibo kinda sucked dry the various characters Nintendo could’ve made. Kinda released quite quickly.
I had an idea about Amiibo Festival, in which you could get “villager forms” of the Amiibos, Like Fox and Falco becoming Animal Crossing style characters,
Or Mario could become a Tanooki, and Link a Wolf… And so on
Like this draw I made for a video about this same topic…
http://firevoyager.tumblr.com/post/148917670651/nintendo-characters-with-amiibo-figures-that-could
This way the game could have been compatible with more amiibos and not just the Animal crossing ones, so you can play it with friends that didn’t have them but have Smash bros amiibos.
Also, that game needed “competitive” minigames… but the chance to make Ganon to eat a cake and go shopping seems priceless.
Great podcast.
Hey Nantendo. Since you guys brought it up I’ll let you know. It wasn’t a Star Fox line. It was a prototype of a transformable Arwing. It is even spotted through a gap between Skylanders and Mario Maker ones. There was also a mystery cancelled one and (the best part for me) Rosalina, Olimar and Ganondorf (the Smash Bros versions) are marked as variant 1. Obviously Rosalina is because she had a Mario version.
The only other three I am aware to have been hinted at (though not confirmed to be in development) are Skull Kid, Telma (this was a suggestion by Aonuma and nothing more) and a Federation Force Mech.
I think they overdid Animal Crossing and should have continued the Mario line in my opinion. It has done much better.
If I could have any amiibo, it would be Ridley.
And there is a Pac-Man at my local Toys ‘r’ us. They did have Sonic and Ryu but I’m not sure if they still do.
I really do want to get a Pikachu Amiibo, but if I bought one for every character I liked to play, I’d have to get a third of all the characters in Smash. Regardless, they don’t sell Amiibo here, so I don’t have the chance to buy them anyway. If they did sell them here, I would buy them if they did have functionality across multiple games, or a full game dedicated to them. I do think that, despite the numbers involved, they could somehow make Pokemon Amiibo cards, but probably in a limited fashion. I think a new TCG game that made use of Amiibo cards would be absolutely fantastic, and Rumble World and Shuffle already have shown that they’re willing to try out a free-to-play model for their spin-off games.
The most I can say about amiibo is I train them competitively, Smash & Mario Tennis. There IS an active metagame for the Smash series, and earlier in the year a youtuber had been hosting tournaments online (Granted the process isn’t easy to explain – you essentially copy the amiibo’s data and e-mail it) so overall it’s been a good year for amiibo competitive-wise.
Granted, the banning of the Little Mac amiibo in most tournaments is sad…
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Anyway, in terms of the future, I’d say the future of amiibo as a product is pretty dismal. Mario and Kriby have lines because they are predominant franchises and they can use their generics for a multitude of games. But other characters like Little Mac aren’t going to see the light of day. (And Animal Crossing only got a line simply because the developers wanted them made and made Amiibo Festival as an excuse to get them made – Since the figures are all special characters, they likely won’t see any real use unlike the generic villager cards.)
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If anything, at the end of the day, Nintendo needs to make their own Skylanders/Disney Infinity-type game in order to keep themselves afloat. A game with Mario, Kirby, Zelda, Animal Crossing, Splatoon, Fire Emblem, and maybe Metroid & Star Fox characters all featured and their amiibo required to play.
Of course, that idea goes against the mission statement of amiibo – where amiibo are merely bonuses. So if anything miis could be used as a ‘dummy’ character, the starter if you just want to play the game outright, and scanning an amiibo would allow you to play as that character, who would likely have more advanced abilities.
I mentioned that list of franchises because they make sense – Mario, Kirby, Zelda, Animal Crossing, Splatoon, and Fire Emblem are all franchises on Nintendo’s hot list. Star Fox and Metroid depend on how SF Zero and Federation Force sell but they also fill a niche to base a futuristic sci-fi theme around. The lack of other franchises mentioned are mainly because they are not given focus by Nintendo. I didn’t add Pokemon, because for some odd reason, Pokemon amiibo share some of the least amount of compatibility, even in Mario Maker where they are actually usable, their costume Mario skin has default sounds and music.
The thing is it would be in their best interest – if they do make such a game – to not release a specialized set exclusively for that game, like they did with Smash Brothers. They should simply use the generics, as we already have Mario, Kirby, Animal Crossing, and Splatoon amiibo – why not use them instead of releasing new amiibo? This way, they can also make generics of the Zelda series instead of individual focused amiibo for each Zelda game, Fire Emblem could receive a new generic set amd may include other notable characters from that series, and Star Fox/Metroid could also get a generic to help gauge interest in maybe making more Star Fox and Metroid games.
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In the end, I like amiibo. I train them competitvely for Smash, despite their inclusion was seemingly late in the game in February 2014 (http://nintendoeverything.com/sakurai-talks-duck-hunt-inclusion-in-smash-bros-8-player-smash-originally-planned-for-melee-more/) – and how they can only be used for local multiplayer.
Considering Animal Crossing’s whole gimmick is ‘Play every day, there’s always something new’ I can see why they’re adding amiibo functionality to that game instead of skipping the whole thing for the NX, which an Animal Crossing game for the NX might not be for a while.
They might also want to get some functionality in, in case amiibo might not be a thing once the AC NX does come out – New Leaf took a while to develop, and with I believe some of the team split to work on Splatoon, it makes sense that they wouldn’t have all the manpower to make a new Animal Crossing game.
At the very least, if they do, time would have the spent on it. New Leaf took many of the aspects from previous titles and improved upon them, whereas City Folk was seemingly an updated release of Wild World with a small, separate worldspace. I would think going forward with the series, Animal Crossing would want to do something different for you to do so it doesn’t feel like they’re merely updating the old game again.