Confession time: I own a lot of Nintendo amiibo. If that statement doesn’t paint enough of a picture, here are the specifics: at the time of writing, I have amassed over 200 amiibo figurines, and am a handful away from obtaining a complete set (most of the ones I still need are Japanese exclusives). If that wasn’t bad enough, I also own every plush amiibo (those are the fancy yarn ones that launched alongside the Yarn Yoshi games), and seeing as how I live in central Florida, I’ll probably end up buying the amiibo bands once Super Nintendo World opens next year.
Now, I should mention that, in the early years, I had a lot of fun collecting amiibo, even if the journey had more than a few bumps along the road. For the longest time, Nintendo had shied away from producing a lot of official, first-party merchandise outside of special editions of their own games. Of course, a lot of that has changed over the past decade, but their foray into the toys-to-life is what got my foot in the door, paving the way for a collection obsession that got a bit out of control at times. Sure, most amiibo were easy enough to find in the wild, but there were also plenty of late nights of refreshing Amazon.com, lining up at the break of dawn outside of Best Buy, and coordinating with friends to divide and conquer on the dreaded days when multiple, retailer-exclusive amiibo would drop.
Now, looking back on it all, it’s hard to say what all that effort was for. Don’t get me wrong — at the end of the day, I have a sizeable collection of figurines that can easily be displayed to show off my nerd cred or sold as a bundle should I want to recoup most of my money. But it’s hard not to wonder if there was a missed opportunity. When Nintendo first announced amiibo 10 years ago, I always envisioned that, at some point, they’d release a game that was built around the product line. Perhaps a gacha game where new characters are unlocked via scanning your amiibo? Or maybe a Nintendo crossover RPG where you build your party based on what toys you happen to own? Oh, the possibilities were endless.
But, as you probably know, those lofty dreams were never meant to be. Amiibo support has dwindled over the years, with only the biggest titles on the Switch getting their own amiibo figurines. This year, in particular, has seen things slow to a crawl — there have only been three new releases so far (finally completing the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate lineup), and next month, four alternate versions of Splatoon‘s Marina, Marie, Callie, and Pearl are set to launch alongside the upcoming Side Order expansion.
With Nintendo barely acknowledging amiibo in their Direct livestreams, and new figurines releasing at an increasingly slow rate, there’s a good chance that amiibo will be sunset moving forward, and I wouldn’t bat an eye if the Nintendo Switch successor doesn’t include an NFC reader. The toys-to-life genre might be a thing of the past, but for me, it’ll continue to live on, both in my memories… and in the IKEA SKUBB storage case accumulating dust bunnies under my bed.
