Sometimes the least important things are what we want the most
[Image by Pitarou]
The amiibo craze doesn’t seem to have died down yet. My guess is that once Nintendo has released 50 different figures, amiibo fans will start to look at all the fun-but-relatively-worthless figures they’ve amassed and suddenly wonder what they are doing with their lives. After that, maybe sales will die down.
Maybe.
That’s OK though. At that point Nintendo could easily take amiibo-thinking to the virtual realm and start selling non-physical goods for Smash Bros. that serve no purpose other than to look nice, like Mario clothes for Bowser and vice versa. It’s a proven crowd pleaser,as evidenced by this passionate blogabout Mailman Link in Hyrule Warriors. It doesn’t always make a ton of sense, but there is just something about seeing videogame characters wearing each other’s clothes that helps us to relate to them more, and feel like their worlds are more real. I know that I’ve wanted to dress up like Ness in real life before. Seeing Captain Falcon feel the same way would make me feel all the more close to him.
Then they could sell a Captian Falcon amiibo wearing Ness’s clothes for a whole new truckload of profit. The Wii U’s relatively small install base wouldn’t matter anymore. The cyclical nature of in-game DLC and amiibo content could be enough to sustain the Wii U for years. Maybe they’ll even start selling amiibo that are compatible with other consoles. That would certainly be a lot safer than going 3rd party completely.
It may sound ridiculous, but the only think I know for sure about the amiibo phenomenon is that you can never be sure of where it will go next.