I thought you were suggesting that all games would need mandatory figurines. If not, then I have nothing against it. I personally think amiibo exclusive DLC is dumb. Not only does it demand you to buy something at retail that could easily be bought and downloaded through your console, but it also jacks up the price for said DLC, especially if the figures become rare. Overall, not a good idea.not properly your example ... I'm referring more these, just to explain:
-more like Half Life 3 delivering exclusive dlc in form of a figurine you connect to SteamPC ...
-more like delivering Street Fighter 5 DLC into a Blanka figurine (selling millions if ever announced such a thing )
-more like a 50$ game splitted in 5 figurines at 10$ each , and each figurine containing a 10 levels self conclusive story mode.
-more like a classic footbal team DLC in form of a figurine of a football player of that team (imagine a chicago bulls classic team basket dlc in form of Jordan/Pippen figurines ...instant million seller!!!)
etc etc
industry is moving to kill retail and going only digital,
videogames shops are closing or changing into merchandise shops,Gamestops recently are giving less and less room for games.
Shipping wise the costs are not much different than shipping other figurines and merchandise they already ship, abandoning disc as media is matter of years anyway, using merchandise goods to deliver content is a thing already, figurines and cards are perfect for that.
Nintendo is going to enrage lots of players if amiibo goes too far, and it is very hard to get your hands on one. And cartridge can do one thing a disc cannot, pack an extra punch.following the patent they could put some GB with "starter" pack of a game and then download the rest from the cloud once connected and verified, nfc would be another layer .
to download you must provide:
basic:
-Console NNID -> registered on console
-nintendo account->required to go online eshop
additional with amiibo unlocker:
-unique nfc code ->read on connect from the amiibo
-starter pack installed encrypted on console hdd
this way you can track a lot of data from consumer and get data on piracy too.
Once verified you can download the rest of the game and use benfits from cloud like exclusive dlc for amiibo version.
alternative is going fully digital with games tied to NNID and nintendo account only.
consumer probably would not mind since they would benefit some exclusive content so they consider the amiibo not only a figurine but also a content plus for them.
consumer that do not care about figurines and dlcs will go fully digital with benefit of room and semplicity on managin his games.
Nintendo will benefit :
-on less logistic volumes since majority will go fully digital,
-more revenues since figurines keep their price value longer than games that you can find after few years on sale for 5$,good for for them and the reseller too.
-more control on piracy since no br disc reader and content must go trhough online servers being tied to accounts.
Extra security chip can still be hacked or bypassed. And people are already pissed about amiibo replacing extra content that even when unlocked are not as good as previous entries. The original mario and luigi outclass paper jam in every way besides graphic.do you think Steam is not checking even the pirated games?
all publishers uses those data for their analysis too... pirates are a good hint on how customers are changing.
pirates are both casual gamers and hardcore gamers, think about dad buying R4 for their kids and hardcore gamers cracking games at day one on pc.
also Steam is open hardware so they cannot control that part.
Sony or Nintendo situation is different thay have more layers of protection and controlling being also hardware designers.
as for amiibo availability xmas reprint is enough, it seems Nintendo factotries now have a better organization on producing and logistics.
what is interesting are the data about the amiibo cards, basically only suported by animal crossing they sold millions of those
quite a success since they had no marketing at all...