why is nintendo not keeping up with demand for amiibos

im no fan of amiibos but they are high in demand, and as we all know some are more rare than others and demand crazy prices online.

so my question is a simple one, why doesnt nintendo produce enough of each individual amiibo to fill the demand. more sales means more money for nintendo and unless they are the assholes on ebay selling em for 100$ i dont see how not keeping up with demand helps nintendo.

Combination of the shipping crane operator's strike on the west coast and Nintendo trying to manufacture hype and avoid having unsold stock in warehouses.

I don't know, but off the top of my head, here are possible theories:

1. They are deliberately reducing supply to increase perceived demand (this is my guess)
2. Problems with the supply chain
3. They are not a toy manufacturer, so they aren't familiar on how to operate with toy manufacturers.
4. ... I had one more, but it slipped my mind.

1 Like the original Wii, Nintendo knew they had a good product but didn't know it would sell this well so they didn't make enough. They were being cautious. Nintendo wants to make as much money as they can, but they are just conservative in their business practices.

2 Nintendo gamers/fans are buying a lot of figures to use

3 Collectors are buying extra copies

4 Scalpers are buying extra copies

Separately, why are people not buying Donkey Kong as much? He is one of Nintendo's original icons and the figure itself is well designed.

Its by design, nothing is worth collecting if you just oversaturate the market with the item. It takes all the fun out of the game. You can import any of the figures from overseas as they are not region locked. Can buy for $19.99 + shipping. Only problem is these are not worth any money as they have foreign writing on the box. Its all about collecting. People want what they cant have.

I don't necessarily find hunting all over the Internet and then paying exorbitant prices (including shipping) to be fun. Nintendo needs to keep up supply, because they aren't the ones benefiting from scalpers.

@JustPlainLucas:

But they do benefit, scalpers cant really scalp all to much, most pre orders have been limited to 1 per person and even the exclusives have been limited to 1 per person, this leaves no time for them to travel and buy more at another store. Yes they can find some other rares if they travel, but they have no clue when shipments are.

Ive had a chance in the beginning to buy multiple rares, but didnt cause i didnt know which were rare and which werent. Limiting certain ones increases the collector value and creates a buzz, which in turn sells the regular ones that are common cause kids want a hot toy. Nintendo is not dumb, they know exactly what they are doing, they are creating hype. I so far have bought 1 rare, not much, but i dont even try. I just go check when im in the neighborhood once in blue moon.

Restocks are coming soon, plus Nintendo has stated it will produce variants of hard to get figures and other figures that you can buy in next waves. If Nintendo just mass produced the toys it wouldnt sell good. also you dont have to hunt on the internet, the imports are super easy to find and dont cost that much more. But warning, they have almost zero collector value so people dont want them. Everyone knows you can buy Villager and Wii Fit from Japan for cheap, but people dont care, its not rare, they want the Rare American one.

Because they suck. I have no idea how I'm going to secure orders for the next wave of amiibo. They will last for about 10 minutes online. I've been lucky to get all of them so far at MSRP.

This thread that got locked pretty much sums it up

Looks like we've got at least a partial answer from Nintendo themselves:

http://au.ign.com/articles/2015/03/03/nintendo-explains-why-re-releasing-amiibo-is-hard

Basically:
- It takes several months for Amiibo to reach stores once production has begun as it's a rather complex process, with several of the models being done by hand.

- Future re-releases will be dictated by both fan and retailer demand.

- Cheaper solutions to replace sold out figurines that won't be returning in figurine form. For example, cards instead of figurines.

The situation you describe has been going on since action figures and such came to be. There have always been figure(s) which were short packed in terrible ratios. I guess in theory this works for demand but I don't see it.

By design?

There's a fine line to be treaded between artificially inflating demand by restricting supply, and frustrating consumers so much that they'll throw up their hands, give up and move on. Nintendo has far crossed it and I'm done. I was still awaiting 1st wave characters to complete my collection up until about a month ago with the 2nd wave on full reserve. To this day, I've still not completed my first set, nor even half of the second.

After a while I just gave up and have taken my money elsewhere. Since then, I've had no proactive interest in Amiibos. It's died off. If I walk into a store and see one I don't have, great. But I'm not going to go out of my way because Nintendo cannot walk this line. They don't understand this balance or how to play it, and they are losing mine (and looking around other forums) and others' $$$ because of it.

When you have exceptional demand that isn't being filled for MONTHS, to the extent that some characters are running in the hundreds on ebay by scalpers that are not even a year old, that is the fault of the company. It's not design, it's incompetence. I have better shit to do with my time than run around chasing it.

They don't want to

/thread