In 2023, Do You Still Care About amiibo?

Nintendo’s amiibo line has been going for over eight years now. Originally launched back on November 21st, 2014 in North America alongside Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, the toys-to-life figurine series has maintained relatively steady interest while competitors like Disney Infinity and Skylanders have completely fallen by the wayside. It’s a phenomenon that really only Nintendo could successfully pull off for so long.

As we look ahead to 2023 and begin to ponder the prospect of a Switch successor, however, we do admittedly find ourselves thinking about what role amiibo will play in Nintendo’s future. Indeed, once Nintendo is completely done with the Super Smash Bros. line-up (with Sephiroth and Kazuya now available, that leaves just Pyra, Mythra, and Sora), one can’t help but wonder whether that will signal the end for these NFC figures.

Nintendo is in a significantly different place than it was when amiibo first launched. For starters, it’s currently enjoying considerable success with the Switch, a console that has surpassed an absurd 114 million units sold since its release in 2017. Compare this to 2014 when several third-party publishers had already distanced themselves from the Wii U due to low sales, you can understand why Nintendo wanted to branch out into the toys-to-life experiment, and perhaps why it might not be quite so invested in the concept today.

Nintendo putting its focus on its core software line-up is a good thing, of course, and something we hope to see continue in the years ahead, but with so few new figures to account for in 2022 outside of Smash Bros. (we got new Splatoon 3 amiibo along with Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak figures, but nothing new for the likes of Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Mario Strikers: Battle League, or Xenoblade Chronicles 3), it seems like it is slowly putting the brakes on amiibo. Heck, we’re not even completely convinced The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will get any. Though surely it will, right? How will we get through the year without a desiccated Ganondorf (if that is him in the trailer) figure or a new Link with his gnarly Master Sword?

Not only that, but beyond the staunch collectors among us, does the average gamer really even care about amiibo anymore? A quick survey of the Nintendo Life office found that pretty much all of us had grown apart from amiibo over the last few years or so, whether it be due to the lack of meaningful in-game implementation, the frustrating stock issues that have plagued consumers since 2014, or simply because we’ve just lost interest in general.

There’s no doubt that there’s still a lot of enthusiasm around amiibo; announcements of restocks or new releases are still frequently met with considerable fervour from the Nintendo community, yet we’d be lying if we said that the overall excitement regarding the product has remained as palpable as it did four or five years ago.

But what do you think? Are you still collecting every amiibo that launches, or have you moved onto pastures new? What was the last one you bought? [Banjo, baby! – Ed.] Be sure to vote in the below polls and share your thoughts with a comment!