In a statement today, Nintendo has addressed the controversy surrounding their insanely popular amiibo figures: “We’re trying to meet the demands of our fans and consumers by increasing the amount of amiibo we manufacture and ship to retail.”
That’s promising news, even if they’re a few months late to the grey market scalping party. Retailers like Wal-mart and Gamestop sell out so quickly that usually the only way to secure certain figures is on sites like eBay. Unsurprisingly, these prices are usually inflated from the MSRP of around $13 to upwards of $40.
Nintendo also made collectors everywhere happy when they mentioned that out-of-stock amiibos might not be gone forever:
We are constantly looking for the opportunity to reissue amiibo and are already making plans to bring back some currently out-of-stock amiibo figures.
What this plain entails however, is still unclear. Until Nintendo can meet the massive demand with an appropriately massive supply, there will be disappointed gamers. Regardless, the reported sales numbers are anything but disappointing. Nintendo claims they’ve sold 6 million figures, with 3.5 million in North America alone.
Here is Nintendo’s full statement:
We appreciate the enthusiasm that our fans continue to show toward amiibo. Sales for the product have exceeded our expectations. We understand how frustrating it can be at times if consumers are unable to find certain figures, and we apologize for that.
We’re trying to meet the demands of our fans and consumers by increasing the amount of amiibo we manufacture and ship to retail. We may continue to see consumer demand outpace supply levels for certain characters at times, but we will do our best to prevent that from happening.
As our library of amiibo continues to grow, some figures will be easier to find than others. We are constantly looking for the opportunity to reissue amiibo and are already making plans to bring back some currently out-of-stock amiibo figures. Stay tuned for details.
Nintendo plans to make it easier for consumers to know when new amiibo are on the way, through Nintendo press announcements, timely updates on our social media channels and working closely with retailers.
We remain committed to keeping amiibo affordable and easy to access as a platform to enhance game-play experiences. These plans include Animal Crossing amiibo cards that will become available by the end of 2015, and a free-to-download app for Wii U calledamiibo tap: Nintendo’s Greatest Bitsthat launched on April 30, 2015, that lets consumers enjoy playable scenes from certain NES and Super NES games with amiibo.