16 minutes. That’s the total time that the June wave of Smash Bros amiibo stayed on Nintendo’s Official UK Store, before vanishing behind the dreaded Sold Out sign. While the US amiibo situation is well documented, it’s easy to buy into the misconception that everywhere else has it easy. We’ve all seen the images of stores brimming with amiibo stock, but these are very much the exception rather than the rule, and in the UK, the presence of amiibo is virtually non-existent.
While the US market is (surprisingly) still very retail focussed, the battle for amiibo in
the UK is almost entirely digital. A by-product of the GAME Stores group holding an effective monopoly of the games industry on the high street, the only place to go to get amiibo is online, and it is here where the chaos arises. Because no matter what companies may say, a pre-order is only worth as much as the paper it’s written on, and in the digital world, that paper doesn’t even exist.
In the retail space, there is only one large video games retailer in the UK – GAME. The GAME group, who for better or worse have swallowed all that have challenged them, are the biggest specialist games retailer out there, meaning amiibo are only going to one place in any meaningful quantity. While supermarkets and department stores are stocking a handful of (typically Mario) amiibo, the ones they know they can sell, the rarer amiibo are simply not appearing at retail, leaving the shelves in constant need of replenishment. Continue reading Amiibo Hunting in the UK →