Amiibos Sold As Many Units As Disney Infinity This Holiday Season

[cmbsfm]

Consulgamer recently released a pie chart showing the online sales of each type of figurine at the US retail chain, Best Buy. What may be a surprise to some is the fact that Amiibos are tied with Disney Infinity products in terms of sales, both taking up 36% of game-to-toy sales each. Skylanders charted in at only 28% of sales, meaning Amiibo sold more products than the already-established figurine based game series.

Amiibos are clearly in high demand, with many people searching far and wide for their favorite characters as well as for collection purposes, so this definitely does make sense. This data is from only one retailer chain, but it wouldn't be wrong to assume that other retailers are having similar results. Amiibos are really shaping up to be a huge success for Nintendo, showing the company can finally make a comeback in terms of profit. Earlier this month, Bloomberg had reported that Nintendo would see their best holiday in years in 2014, and no doubt Amiibo will strongly contribute to their success.

This news brings up an interesting question: if Nintendo had shipped more stock for Amiibo, could it have sold more than the Disney Infinity figurines? Comment below to become part of the conversation.

Source: Gamasutra

*Editor's Note* Thanks to @ cmbsfm for his contribution! While he is not an on-staff writer, he sent this article to me as an independent piece of work that I felt lived up to the quality standards of Smashboards. If you have an urge to write and think it's worthy of the Smashboards front page, send me a draft! I will be happy to look it over. -The Derrit

 

[U-Throw]

I'd be interested to see if they sold better than Disney Infinity when you tally in all of the other retailers...

 

[Hellrazor]

Nintendo confirmed better than Disney.

 

[Kidney Thief]

It's just plastic figurines for kids, why do we care so mch about them as an older community

 

[laurits kristiansen]

Wow thats awesome good job nintendo

 

[Snagrio]

They would've sold even MORE if the stocking wasn't so low...

 

[TheAnvil]

I'd be concerned if they didn't outsell Skylanders. Considering Spyro is the only well known character, and he's not even remotely as iconic as a lot of Nintendo's characters.

 

[LIQUID12A]

I'm impressed, honestly. I didn't think that amiibo would rival friggin Disney Infinity, especially with the discontinuations, but it did.

 

[Smash_Veteran_Amtoj]

It's just plastic figurines for kids, why do we care so mch about them as an older community

We're getting affordable figurines of our favorite Nintendo characters that can be trained to become the ultimate sparring partners in Smash. What is there not to love?

 

[capfalcon159]

maybe if Nintendo actually kept the other amiibos besides mario and luigi in stock, they could crush disney infinity.

 

[U-Throw]

It's just plastic figurines for kids, why do we care so mch about them as an older community

Because some of us like fighting surprisingly difficult CPUs of our favorite characters that learn from us, adapt to counter our fighting style, and can be customized to use equipment and Custom Moves. They also unlock additional content, such as costumes, in other games and are planned to be compatible with a wide variety of Nintendo games. That's not even bringing up the relatively inexpensive price.

 

[Sen. Sawft]

And yet my town still doesn't have series 2 in stock...

 

[Altais]

Whoa, I honestly did not think Amiibo would see this well. This is good news indeed.

 

[Rockin]

Amiibos are really shaping up to be a huge success for Nintendo, showing the company can finally make a comeback in terms of profit.

....That isn't true at all.

People were only buying them so rapidly and thirsty-like cause half of those waves were limited. I'm sure if they were becoming as full stocked as the other amiibos/figurines, it wouldn't have been that crazy. It's really a stretch to consider this a 'comeback' for Nintendo.

Nintendo's doing good in sales, but they still got some work to do as far as competing with Microsoft and Sony (granted, they're doing fairly well against Disney, but again, it's cause of that rarity factor with half of the ammibos).

 

[N7S]

Nintendo, you have struck gold!!!!

 

[laurits kristiansen]

Nintendo, you have struck gold!!!!

Indeed they did

 

[lord narwhal]

I contributed nothing to this success.

 

[Rambeard]

Nintendo printed money this holiday season.

 

[N.T.A.O ChangeOfHeart 死の剣]

They still have two work through two years in debt so that's still not enough.

 

[aethermaster]

I can't help but wonder how many of the people who bought amiibos were soccer moms getting a Mario thing for their kid only for them to scream at the customer service lady the day after because it didn't work with "their wii sports club game".

 

[Mega Bidoof]

Remember how Skylanders started off claiming to be a new Spyro game, but then had nothing to do with Spyro, except him being one figure along with a bunch of Fan-Made Pokémon from Deviantart?

And remember how the 3 sequels didn't even have "Spyro" in the title, and he didn't even come with the main bundle set.

I'm not surprised amiibo is doing better than it. Nintendo has iconic characters, and Skylanders has.......crappy Spyro redesign......who isn't even the poster child anymore. People only got Skylanders at first because it was kinda original. Now it's just rehash, in a world with other "toys-to-life" games, that actually have really cool and iconic characters.

I was going to get Disney Infinity 2.0, but the lack of Gravity Falls characters and other iconic Disney characters disturbed me. There are more Marvel heroes in the whole game than there are Classic Disney icons.
I'll just wait until next year, with the inevitable "Disney Infinityb3.0
featuring Star Wars". Maybe they'll add more Disney characters NOT from the past decade, and also Gravity Falls.
How the hell does Phineas and Agent P get in over Dipper and Mabel I swear...

 

[K-45]

I would buy more amiibos if they had any in stock......

Where's my diddy and little mac

 

[PokÉmblem]

It helps that the way us nintendo fans are dedicated to nintendo. I already have 4 amiibos and I'm planning to get a few more in the future.

 

[Leafeon523]

I would buy more amiibos if they had any in stock......

Where's my diddy and little mac

Now imagine how many Amiibo Nintendo would have sold if they actually had enough of them in stock...

 

[LordCQ]

Ganondorf amiibo can't come soon enough!

After I finish my Zelda collection, I think I'll get the Fire Emblem guys too :D

 

[Ħαχση]

Take that Disney Infinity

 

[Pippin (Peregrin Took)]

Remember how Skylanders started off claiming to be a new Spyro game, but then had nothing to do with Spyro, except him being one figure along with a bunch of Fan-Made Pokémon from Deviantart?

And remember how the 3 sequels didn't even have "Spyro" in the title, and he didn't even come with the main bundle set.

I'm not surprised amiibo is doing better than it. Nintendo has iconic characters, and Skylanders has.......crappy Spyro redesign......who isn't even the poster child anymore. People only got Skylanders at first because it was kinda original. Now it's just rehash, in a world with other "toys-to-life" games, that actually have really cool and iconic characters.

I was going to get Disney Infinity 2.0, but the lack of Gravity Falls characters and other iconic Disney characters disturbed me. There are more Marvel heroes in the whole game than there are Classic Disney icons.
I'll just wait until next year, with the inevitable "Disney Infinityb3.0
featuring Star Wars". Maybe they'll add more Disney characters NOT from the past decade, and also Gravity Falls.
How the hell does Phineas and Agent P get in over Dipper and Mabel I swear...

Yes! Gravity falls for Disney infinity. Also Nintendo could make it so a code from another figurine could have a mii transferred onto it. Dipper and Mabel for smash 4

 

[smashbroskilla]

It's just plastic figurines for kids, why do we care so mch about them as an older community

I'm 33 and plan on getting at least 3 figurines when the price levels. I want captain falcon, marth and fox. For the price they are sculpted very nicely and it looks like a in game smash trophy. To get something this personalized you usually have to be like a platinum nintendo coin holder(even though they only give out digital stuff now) in order to get something as cool as this. Now you spend a dozen dollars and you have an awesome figurine for your favorite collection shelf. I have a video game room with smash posters, games figures etc so the Amiibos will look really nice in my smash den. Don't ever let anyone make you feel like you still can't enjoy things at any age. As long as your bills are paid and you have decent morals I could care less if someone played pokemon until they were 90 years old.

 

[Tino]

Wave 3 can't seem to come any faster. I want that Rosalina and Mega Man amiibos.

 

[Sarki Soliloquy]

Activision, you've created a two-headed hydra, gnashing and gnawing at each other's necks and your own!

Does anyone here think that the limited shipments & selective character stocks actually helped Nintendo's sales in the long run? It seems the demand outweighed the supply, urging consumers to spend more in faster time.

It's just plastic figurines for kids, why do we care so mch about them as an older community

Whilst I don't like the execution of amiibo, this is Animation Age Ghetto logic and I vehemently disagree with it.

 

[Psionic]

I'd be interested to see if they sold better than Disney Infinity when you tally in all of the other retailers...

i feel like people are overlooking this post. this is only best buy. how do we know the same can be said for the other vendors?

 

[KenboCalrissian]

On the one hand, more supply = more sales, that's elementary.

On the other, part of the reason these things are selling so hot is because of low demand. Everybody's panicking over whether they'll actually get the toys they want, and we're buying doubles of the rares because we think they're going to skyrocket in value (A box of 40 amiibos containing 1 Pit, 2 Captain Falcons, and 37 Luigis is a sin)

 

[Saikyoshi]

They probably would've sold more Amiibos if they made more Amiibos. They brought this year's failure on themselves. Again.

(Equal to Disney Infinity of all things... Pathetic. How many Amiibos HAVE been sold? One dozen?)

 

[Tepig2000]

And yet my town still doesn't have series 2 in stock...

And yet we don't even have amiibos at all here in Brazil...

 

[the101]

I believe that the sales of Disney Infinity and Amiibo figures are so successful because they are iconic and recognizable figures. If a child doesn't know who Mario is, a mother or father would. As for he figures themselves, I think something more exciting will be produced so that they would be able to do more than act as sparing partners or unlock racing suits.
Until then, I admire them from their display cases as I play Captain Toad.

 

[Aninymouse]

Activision, you've created a two-headed hydra, gnashing and gnawing at each other's necks and your own!

Does anyone here think that the limited shipments & selective character stocks actually helped Nintendo's sales in the long run? It seems the demand outweighed the supply, urging consumers to spend more in faster time.

I've often pondered this myself, over the past couple weeks. I'm mostly mad that I had to import Marth, Villager and Wii Fit Trainer from foreign countries, and the legendary scarcity of Little Mac and Pit is getting to that point, but... I'm still buying them. All of them. I plan on getting them all.

At the start of this, I tallied up the total price tage for buying all of them and thought, "no way, I'll never buy that many." Then Marth, Villager and Wii Fit Trainer disappeared around the time Wave 2 was coming out, and suddenly it hit me: I might never be able to own half of these things. The very thought that I would be denied access to the amiibo I wanted due to high demand and low stock drove me to frustration and anger, and created that sense of urgency. I'm far, far, FAR from a rich man, and here I am, blowing my paychecks on these things as best I can.

It worked.

Now, do I think Nintendo overshot a bit in controlling the amiibo supply? YES. They definitely overdid it. But at the same time, it is smart business not to have shelves full of Marth collecting dust (and please forgive me here, I mean no disrespect; I like Marth), and there is very limited shelf space, so not all the amiibos can fit on the displays at once. BUT THEY OVERCOMPENSATED. Amiibo are far too rare for a top seller item. Even now, most stores that aren't Target, Toys 'R' Us, or Gamestop have mostly empty displays. Even Mario, Link and Pikachu are selling out at places like Best Buy and Wal-Mart.

So is it true that they hurt their sales by severely limiting supply? Yes. Is it true that the demand was driven up by that same tactic? Yes. What is the fine balance? Well, for one thing, it'd be nice if there were more than 2 Little Mac in an entire state the size of Virginia, for instance... Little Mac irks me especially, since even though Punch Out! isn't a killer franchise that's likely to make a comeback, Mac himself is widely popular in America in general. It's probably Americans who bought out the stock of Little Mac overseas, if I had to guess, just because they are so rare right now.

i feel like people are overlooking this post. this is only best buy. how do we know the same can be said for the other vendors?

In my experience, Best Buy is like Wal-Mart in their amiibo sales: the only Wave 2s they sold were online, and so 99% of their amiibo sales were common wave 1s. In addition, Best Buy and Wal-Mart have had the lowest stock levels of all the retailers. Very often, the displays are near empty and stay that way for days and weeks on end.

I can't help but wonder how many of the people who bought amiibos were soccer moms getting a Mario thing for their kid only for them to scream at the customer service lady the day after because it didn't work with "their wii sports club game".

Not many, I'd wager. What an incredibly cynical and bitter thing you have wrought, here.

 

[KirbyandSonicrock14]

Now to take out failanders.

 

[RoxburyGuy58]

It's just plastic figurines for kids, why do we care so mch about them as an older community

When is the next time they're gonna make a Captain Falcon or Mr. Game & Watch figure?

 

[MarioMeteor]

Nintendo is finally reasserting their dominance.

 

[cmbsfm]

....That isn't true at all.

People were only buying them so rapidly and thirsty-like cause half of those waves were limited. I'm sure if they were becoming as full stocked as the other amiibos/figurines, it wouldn't have been that crazy. It's really a stretch to consider this a 'comeback' for Nintendo.

Nintendo's doing good in sales, but they still got some work to do as far as competing with Microsoft and Sony (granted, they're doing fairly well against Disney, but again, it's cause of that rarity factor with half of the ammibos).

I meant as in terms of profit. Nintendo had posted their third annual loss back in may, so for them to finally start posting profit again could be considered a "comeback".
I do totally agree though when it comes to competing with Microsoft and Sony they fall behind, the vgchartz data(while not 100% accurate, they should at least give us an idea of the real numbers) shows them lagging behind in terms of sales, but then again, we know sony's other divisions are bleeding cash & we don't know if MS is making profit of the one with that price cut.(Or at least I don't, I should probably look that up.) But as far as hardware goes they're definitely behind.(At least with the wii u.)