First, let me say I am by no means a connoisseur when Amiibo are involved. I don’t own any, I don’t know exactly which Amiibo are in what wave, but when I heard that the date for Mario Party on WiiU is confirmed for March 20 in Europe and the U.S. it was an excellent excuse for me to do some research. Because with more then 70 mini games to play in Mario Party’s Mushroom Kingdom it’s a great opportunity to make good use of the Amiibo. For instance, when you own the amiibo of the character with which you are playing you can use it in Amiibo Party to battle it out in constantly changing, interactive game boards in the style of your amiibo. So if you have Mario, there will be a Mario board with mushrooms that can make a character grow.
What’s great is that some Amiibo allow you to change it, tailoring it into your own personal version of the Mario Amiibo, or the Peach Amiibo. It doesn’t work for all though, there are huge charts detailing what Amiibo works with what game, and whether it can only be used to bring the character with special moves and such in the game, or if it’s changeable to make it your very own. By now three waves have been released, triggering shortage in stock, and even rarity in some Amiibo. Two future waves are confirmed, and I think we can safely say Nintendo has a huge success on its hands. I’m glad, because as you know I want Nintendo to do well, so that they will keep on releasing excellent consoles and games.
Since owning a Vita I’m interested in what drives Sony with its Playstation and Vita, and I read an article about whether or not Sony should follow suit and try for Amiibo-like figurines for Sony’s most liked characters. Though the Sony devices currently aren’t built for such Near Field Communications, I think that a lot of Amiibo that are bought aren’t for use in a game but are bought as collectables. So if Sony should 
manage to link into popular games they have, it could work. Question is though if Sony’s characters are just as recognizable as Nintendo’s. Nintendo has a lot of recognizable and even iconic characters. Plus, Nintendo typically has fans of all ages, where Sony’s games appeal more to teenagers. So when Pushsquare.com, (the sister site of Nintendolife.com for Sony’s systems) put a poll up to ask if fans would buy Playstation figurines, 38% answered they’d display them with pride, while 38% said they wouldn’t be buying them. For 23% it was a maybe, depending on the use with games.
We will see what happens in the future, but we can safely say Amiibo are a big hit!
When I think of Sony, the only recognizable character that comes to mind is “sack boy” from the Little Big Planet series of games. I am not sure what comes after that. There is Ratchet & Clank, Jak and Daxter, and Tekken. And even those games were developed by someone else and just published by Sony. But it is just not the same as with Nintendo. With the name Nintendo, my mind explodes and it is synonymous with a multitude of characters that they have made a big part of gaming on any of their consoles. Characters that they have worked hard creating & making them household words. They have basically built their consoles around those franchises. I think that is where the difference lies between Sony and Nintendo. I think the amiibo would work more in Nintendo’s gaming world than it would for Sony. Sony seems to build a console and then wait for others to make games for it. At least that is what I see when comparing the two. I think Nintendo has the opportunity to make the amiibo big. This only my little opinion.
Your opinion is spot on, I think. Now, I’m not really a Sony expert, my Vita is my first ever device from that company. But before I bought it, I did know Sack Boy and his game. And I know they had an English version of Ni No Kuni, but that’s not developed by Sony. On the other hand, I think even my mother how is 81 knows Mario! So the Nintendo characters are indeed much more household names. There are more differences between the way Nintendo and Sony approach their gamers, I’ll get back to that in a next blog. Thanks for your opinion, I couldn’t have worded it better myself!