Rumor: Nintendo rep on amiibo shipments, Majora’s Mask New 3DS XL won’t be restocked
I’m not usually one to post tidbits coming from Nintendo representatives, in large part because they don’t always know what they’re talking about. However, some interesting information has surfaced from “D” over on NeoGAF, who spoke with a rep while at GameStop.
Below is a quick summary:
– West Coast port strike directly affected amiibo shipments
– Nintendo still has amiibo from January/February on shipping crates that haven’t been unloaded
– Amiibo for the newer wave (King Dedede, Sonic, etc.) were delivered by air
– This costs a lot of money, and Nintendo doesn’t intend to keep on doing that
– There will be a restock of older waves, especially for rare characters such as Wii Fit Trainer
– Nintendo only made so many since they thought there wouldn’t be much demand for some franchises with obscure characters
– Nintendo has been receiving a ton of emails from people that can’t find/are looking for these rare characters, and they are trying to do what they can to get them out there but due to the port strike
– A lot of those characters are still on the ships
– You should keep checking store for some of the older characters to appear
– amiibo for the upcoming wave (Ness, Charizard, etc.) are having their release dates and pre-orders held at due to the port strike and because Nintendo wants to make sure the situation with the strike will not affect shipments again
– Nintendo also wants to gauge the market for demand, which will determine how many to produce
– Once most of the cargo gets offloaded and the situation improves, Nintendo will talk to retailers about stock, and an announcement will be made
– Majora’s Mask New 3DS XL is gone
– It was truly a limited edition release
– There is no stock anywhere in any warehouse, and there are no plans for a restock
– Retailers were apparently informed about 6 months before the Majora’s Mask New 3DS XL release and ordered accordingly
– The rep didn’t know anything about a release date or Nintendo Direct for the remaining Mario Kart 8 or Mewtwo DLC
– Nintendo Directs are somewhat random in nature, and the rep doesn’t really get any sort of heads up
– If Nintendo wants to show gameplay of something, then the Directs are the only way they’ll do it
We can’t officially confirm that the information above is valid. It definitely sounds spot on though!
