Amiibos hold 36% market share of all NFC figures at Best Buy

[RuRo]

Don't know how accurate this is, but it is good to be hearing good news about how these are performing rather than bad news (perception matters). Hopefully if they perform well then they can help Nintendo be profitable, be able to include some good press about a success story, and perhaps even be in people's mind as another feature of the Wii U (built in NFC compatibility).

Of course even if they did compete with or outperform Skylanders / Disney figures this holiday, a lot of their success is due to the novelty factor, people buying them at launch. The real test will be if they can keep selling these figurines next year or the the year after. And unfortunately I think they are in a bit of a rock and a hard place when it comes to their functionality in games... they want to keep putting out products for serious gamers and sell games that are complete, so they can't make them as crucial as Disney / Skylanders figures, e.g. requiring you to buy the Amiibo of all secret characters to unlock them in Super Smash Bros. But if they keep releasing games you can get the complete experience without Amiibo, then people will keep saying "These figures don't really do much in the games". It's a little liker the Gamepad dilemma - if they use it too heavily people will complain about "gimmicky controls" but if they don't use it enough people will complain that the games aren't making enough use of it.

The functionality in Smash is a good compromise, and that they unlock some features like costumes and weapons in various other games is a great touch (and a much better way of doing it than pre-order bonuses or retailer exclusives, in my opinion), but I really hope they are heavily utilised in Mario Party (a game that would fit with them imo) and / or another Amiibo focused game (hopefully released with a 3DS version and the NFC adapter / New 3DS next year), so that their core games don't end up requiring a plastic key to unlock vital features but the Amiibo have a clear and obvious use in a game. Otherwise they can really only be sold as collectibles with some extra bonus unlocks, and even if they did fly off the shelves this year I don't think that can sustain them for next year or the year after that...