by Doc – Owner, Founder, Why Wasn’t Streetpass on the Switch
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Last year, Nintendo quietly discontinued the Nintendo 3DS. The company’s official site said that it was out of production, and stuck the only mention of it next to the very, very dead Wii U. That’s quite the sad end for such a storied console, but it’s even sadder when you consider that the New series was branded alongside the amiibo line, and the New 3DS was the first to introduce amiibo functionality to the system (the amiibo scanner for older models came later.)
So, What Does It Mean?
Well, there’s several games on the 3DS that received amiibo and then made no impact, and precious few amiibo sales – games like Chibi-Robo, BOXBOY!, Mario Sports Superstars and more all had amiibo support specific to their game. Since they didn’t move units, they didn’t move amiibo, and neither the game nor amiibo were reprinted (or in Mario Sports’ case, had too many amiibo cards to be worth reprinting them all).
This basically cements the fact that these amiibo will likely never be reprinted, unless we have an unlikely situation where these games get a sequel on the Nintendo Switch, and soon – the Switch is at the middle of its life, and I personally doubt that Nintendo will shell out the extra expense to include amiibo compatibility in the next generation’s hardware. So they’d better get developing if we’re going to get amiibo reprints while this console is still kicking.
How Do Collectors Respond to This?
Collectors should be aware that the likelihood of these amiibo coming back into circulation is effectively zero, and will remain zero as long as there are no sequels announced. They should take the opportunity to buy these amiibo secondhand while it’s still possible – as quantities diminish over time, they’re going to get more expensive. And functional amiibo are going to get harder to find as well – they seem to start popping at about five years.
Fortunately, many of the amiibo that were released during the Wii U/3DS era seem to be getting reprints for one excuse or another. Smash Ultimate, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and Zelda games are keeping them alive, so you’re not going to have as hard of a time finding these until the end of the Switch’s lifespan, most likely.
Amiibo Doctor 