Activision may have spearheaded the toys-to-life category with 2011’s Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure, but Nintendo see themselves as being a “trendsetter” with their amiibo figures.
That’s according to company president Satoru Iwata, who sees their decision to allow amiibo to interact in different ways across multiple games as leading the way ahead of their competitors.
“At first glance it may look like we’re a trend follower with amiibo,” Iwata began discussing with TIME. “But really what we’re doing is, we have introduced amiibo in a way that is new and where amiibo do things in our games that they can’t do anywhere else. From that perspective, we feel that we are a trendsetter.”
Where Nintendo see challenges is in the retail space, being able to successfully differentiate themselves from how Skylanders and Disney Infinity are similarly lining shelves.
He continued, “It’s true that if you go into a retail store, and you see the retail shelves, that from a retail perspective, we’re leveraging the structure that’s in place for how the toys to life category is being sold. That’s a hurdle that’s hard to overcome in terms of differentiation. But in terms of how the amiibo are used in games, we do feel that we are taking the lead in terms of broadening what toys to life can be.”
Nintendo see themselves as being a “trendsetter” with amiibo
