I watched this matpat video and it was an interesting vid. I don't believe the conspiracy stuff is true, but still an interesting watch.

 

This whole amiibo shortage thing is news to me, then again I live under a rock 

 

I went to the store a couple days ago and bought super smash bros and four amiibo, Link, Robin, Lucina and Dark Pitt for $17 each. I also looked for Zelda and Pitt, as well as Palutena. I couldn't find them but the wall was still filled with amiibos.  

 

Apparently these are rare in america or something? These are some photos from auz stores

 

 

 

 

 

I guess it's time for me to start an ebay? U want my rare amiibos m8?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As an American, I also had no idea about this "shortage". Sure, Wal-Mart always seems to be fresh out, but all of the Gamestops I've been to seem to be well-stocked, as well as my local chain of game stores.

I thought this ended since last fall?

 

I mean the only amiibo I know that Nintendo didn't restock well enough was Lucina, Robin, and maybe Pit. Everyone else was easy to get during restocks.

 

But what do I know, I stopped collecting amiibo since then.

Oddly enough I've never had trouble getting my hands on any amiibo. If there was one I really wanted then I pre-ordered it (for example Ness and Shulk). Nowadays Nintendo has seem to got amiibo fairly well stocked where I am and I can go into a Gamestop or Smyths Toys and know that if I really want a particular amiibo then no doubt I can get it.

 

Problem is, I have no longer found an incentive to buy amiibo any more. They were almost a fad for me. I've got a nice collection, but the Smash set was imo the best set and now that it's on its way out I've more or less got the figures I'm interested in.

 

It seemed to be a running joke that amiibo were exclusive to eBay, but here in Ireland I never noticed that much of an issue. I got Marth despite reports he was rare due to shortages. I got Shulk (albeit a day late) despite being rare. I even got Jigglypuff and Inkling Boy via PlayAsia because they weren't available locally.

 

Were America and the UK the only places that seem to have shortages? Because they seem to be the only folk who I ever saw complaining about the situation.

 

Edit: I do remember wanting a Captain Falcon and I still haven't had the chance to get one, but I've more or less given up on owning one.

Edited May 8, 20169 yr by KHSoraKeyBlade

The shortage was ages ago when they first came out. From my memory it hit Amercia the worst though I still had some difficultly finding some of the amiibo I wanted in the UK. I actually ended up importing a few amiibo from Japan because it was much cheaper than paying the inflated prices.

 

Now everywhere is pretty much well stocked and there's no trouble finding most amiibo. Some of the older ones are also a lot cheaper if you look in the right places.

As others have mentioned, the amiibo shortage ended last Fall, at least out here in America where the situation was the worst. Things were really bad for about a year, but with Wave 5, Nintendo stocked everything well out here. There was a week or so when they were tough to find, but a second shipment came out quickly and took care of any issues. A lot of older amiibo were given huge restocks around that time as well. Even though stock numbers for those seem to be dwindling, they lasted long enough that most people that wanted them were able to get them. There are a few more that need restocks here in America (Namely Robin, Lucina, Wii Fit Trainer, Palutena, and Pit), and some recent ones are tough to find (Roy and... well, pretty much just Roy), but the situation has changed a lot over the past few months. There are a few that have been specified to be limited runs as well (Mega Yarn Yoshi and the upcoming Splatoon amiibo, for example. Marth/Villager/Wii Fit Trainer were originally going to be limited runs, but we got restocks for all three, even though WFT was like one per store), which doesn't help much, but those are the main ones that are tough to find. It was pretty much crazy for me to think that I'd ever get a North American Little Mac, King DeDeDe, Meta Knight, Villager, or Rosalina, but all of those are on my shelf now, and I got them at the normal retail price. I'm pretty happy with how things have turned around.

 

As for what caused the shortages, I think it was just that Nintendo underestimated the demand for them out here. North America's a huge region to supply, and a lot of people out here want to collect. There are a lot of collectors elsewhere as well, but we're such a large region that it's tough to get sufficient stock for everyone. Nintendo just didn't prepare for it at first, although they eventually figured out how to stock properly. It should also be brought up that a lot of stores did nothing to help with stock, since limitations like "two of each per person" took a long time to be put in place. Scalpers bought a ton of the amiibo that were anticipated, meaning no one else could get them unless they paid insane prices to whoever managed to snatch them all first (And by insane prices, I mean in the range of $40-$50. It was really bad back then). That just made the situation worse.

 

As a final note, just to let you know, the whole Ebay strategy might not work as well as you'd expect since a lot of people out here seem to be New in Box collectors that want the North American boxes just to have a consistent collection. There are plenty of us that don't really care (All of mine are out of the box so I can use them in games. I also think they look nicer that way), but that's probably something to keep in mind. And I know that was probably a joke but I had to give that answer anyway