The Current State of amiibo

Nintendo introduced amiibo in 2014, and released them alongside Super Smash Bros for Wii U. They were massively successful, and Nintendo continues to release new figures to this day... I think.

While amiibo figures continue to sell, physical stores don't appear to be all that interested in stocking them. While I don't know for absolute certain, I suspect this isn't due to a lack of stock either, as Amazon has many amiibo figures available at their standard price if not cheaper. So what's the deal with amiibo?

The problem with amiibo comes from the concept. They rode off the popularity of Disney Infinity and Skylanders with the toys-to-life idea. The big difference is that no (paid) game required amiibo in order to function, and they would instead unlock content in games. Super Smash Bros showed this idea by making the figures become a fighter in game that you could train.

Then there became an issue involving their availability. People wanted certain characters more than Nintendo had thought, so stores ended up with too many Mario amiibo figures and not enough Marth figures. This created a massive issue with scalpers selling amiibo figures for much more than their intended price.

Then there's the issue of the content that amiibo unlock. Every time amiibo are brought up, you see people arguing that they need to have more function in games, followed by people saying they do too much already. This is only made more irritating by the rarity of some figures, which can make some in-game content almost impossible to unlock due to an amiibo's rarity.

I also want to expand on their availability in stores. They aren't. With the former exception of Toys R Us and the still exception of Best Buy, I can't find amiibo figures or cards in physical stores. A nearby Walmart that was recently constructed has no amiibo available, and doesn't even have a space for amiibo.

Honestly I like the concept for amiibo. Nice looking figures that unlock minor content in certain games sounds like a neat idea. The problems are the amount of figures that do the same thing, not enough of them being available when a new batch launches, and not being available in physical stores. I also feel like they do too much in some games.

I hope that Nintendo is able to fix their amiibo issue, but none of these issues have been resolved for the four years amiibo have existed, and the issues have existed for the whole time.