Well....yeah, what were you expecting? Amiibo are little figures (aka physical) that add things to your games (aka DLC). In Smash you get a fighter to train and work alongside you, in Hyrule Warriors you get an exclusive weapon with certain amiibo (and random gifts with everyone else), in Mario Kart you get skins to dress up your Mii, in a bunch of upcoming games (Mario Party, Captain Toad, Kirby, Yoshi) the specifics haven't been announced. We didn't even know about the Hyrule Warriors function before a few weeks ago so that is a nice little bonus.  What exactly were you expecting?

I do think that their should be some sort of "hub game" as I call it, but it seems to me like you were expecting something radically different and to be freaking out about this when there aren't even two games requiring write data seems a little over the top. Even still, these are pretty cheap figures as far as figures go and they work in a lot of games. Having to delete your data if you use it in multiple games with write features (assuming Nintendo doesn't create a way to store data), is a small caveat, sure, but saying that anyone who buys them is being "butt raped" is a little over the top. Maybe you should turn down your hyperbole or get a little perspective in your life...

" fail miserably. "

Yeah you'll see how wrong this is by end of the year.

Maybe you shouldn't be so damn shortsighted. Yes, NOW there is only one game that requires written data or whatever, but the expectation is that there will be many more in the future. Having the equivalent of preorder bonuses tied to these toys is not an interesting or good use of the whole concept. I've said before that this whole thing was half-assed. It's not even half-assed it's quarter-assed or eighth-assed.

This is what happens when you prioritize profit margin.

Cheap NFC solution with low capacity storage.

Yea I see people on GAF saying that NFC is limited to 10 KB or something but that's pure BS because it's a data transfer method isn't it?

NFC itself is just the way the data is transfered and stored, the device itself has a set amount of storage, more modern ones allow for up to 512kb of storage but these are a little more expensive than ones such as the innovision topaz, nxp ntag 203 and similar, in all likelihood, Nintendo have gone with an NXP variant that stores between 96 bytes to 2kb.

Beyond that isnt within the financial scope of a toy.

Either way it's not enough to store multiple game data unless the data itself was heavilly compressed, the crypto string would still limit it to a certain amount of data rgardless.

If they had actually gone with high capacity for the amiibos they would have included multi title functionality from the begining to make use of tht investment.

In this instance they would be going with type 2, but even if they went with type 5 (see footnote on image) or type 4, it still wouldnt have the capacity for multi game support.  I.e. they cheaped out.

Also In before a nintendo fan tries to run with the idea of nintendo making a custom NFC module with all the bells and whistles and high capacity, just for amiibos, please don't even consider claiming this.

Sorry bout my shortsighted-ness. I wear glasses, but I guess my prescription is a little dated. Thanks for the pro tip ^.^

I think that the current forecast of games has some predictive quality. Yes there will be some games in the future with big Amiibo integration and they might even use write data (I have made the point before that write data really isn't needed if you aren't going to be using your Amiibo on someone else's system as the Wii U itself is perfectly capable of managing all the other processes and systems, no matter how complex...I think that there is a good chance of us seeing games with significant amiibo integration that only utilize read data, but only time will tell) but I think that the amount of games that you can use your amiibo with even with only one write file per amiibo (ignoring the fact that you can overwrite data) is still a pretty hefty amount of content which is well worth the asking price, especially with the fact that you get a nifty little figure alongside it. 

In conclusion, the toys can do almost everything without utilizing the write data except for functioning on someone else's system so complex amiibo functionality may not always require write data, and there is potential for Nintendo to create an update to allow you to store your data on your Wii U. Overall, you may think that it is short sighted, but thinking down the line, I am still getting a lot of content for my money and as more games release, that value will just increase. If I want to hold a lot of write data, I can buy multiple amiibo (Nintendo has also confirmed that it is working on cheaper amiibo products such as cards), or I can just save over my old data that I'm not using anymore, and there may be some games with write data that I will skip. 

You can personally evaluate whether or not it is a good value for you but I don't think that this is objectively a rip off. I mean, I personally don't buy games at launch when I can get them significantly cheaper just a few weeks later, but I'm in the minority there. Money means different things to different people and your level of outrage at this just seems extraordinarily hyperbolic that it is fairly laughable.

EDIT: Even if they did go with a larger storage system for the figures, that cost would just be passed on to the consumer. I would rather get two figures that unlock multiple things in multiple games for 25$ than one figure that can unlock one thing in multiple games, but can store multiple write files for 16$... All in all, which do you honestly think is the better deal? Its like buying in bulk...you pay more, but you also get more for your money.

@ Tachi: Just out of curiousity, do you know anything about the difference in cost between what Nintendo is using and what would be enough to three or more save files?

Be careful about reporting NFC storage capacities, as many companys use kilobits on their datasheets, not kilobytes.

Difference would be around $0.60 per amiibo, but the issue is more that the NFC reader on the WiiU is a broadcom 20792 low power module, its datasheet doesnt state any compatibility with type 3 nfc, so in all likelihood, they potentially couldnt use the higher capacity units even if they wanted to.

Looking through the SDK documentation, how it works is the console NID and savedata is compressed into a single string encoded in base64, the string is then encrypted and stored with a private key, if someone elses data is read, the private key decrypts the string and can pull the NID and save string to use in the software.

Their approach is to have the game software translate the save data to a string, much like old games giving you save progress in a short series of numbers and letters, the crypto on private key prevents the tags being modified and the latter 32byte of memory is used for a basic handshake as was done with disney infinity tags, a separate security inclusion to try and stop generic readers dumping the data.

So I would, based on that info, assume that they are use up to 64bytes for encrypted save string and the remaining 32 bytes for security layer, thus using 96byte tags.

You can, with compression, store a decent amount of data in 64 bytes, even with the header, but multi-save support would cut into the available space per title, then you would need to implament a secure data management routine in to the SDK for decrypting data, reading the whole array then allocating different parts of the data to different titles, and that sort of management is not in the latest SDK, literally just read/write/encode/encrypt support.