It’s a whole lot more than a Skylander’s clone!

During Nintendo’s E3 Digital Event they revealed a whole ton of new details and games including updates from Super Smash Bros, Xenoblade Chronicles X & Hyrule Warriors as well as the first looks at Splatoon and The Legend of Zelda for Wii U. One of the event’s first announcements however has been somewhat over shadowed, and now that the dust has settled it’s time to have a closer look at how Nintendo plan to change the future of video games forever. Originally announced during Nintendo’s last financial briefing at the start of May this year. Nintendo shared first details about how they were planning the Nintendo Figurine Platform, or NFP to work in unison with not just one, but several video games in development for both the Wii U & Nintendo 3DS. Although they refrained for sharing full details on how this would work, they did reveal that Nintendo’s catalog of cherished characters would be realized into collectible NFC-enabled figurines, which would interact with software through the Wii U’s NFC reader and a separate NFC adapter for the Nintendo 3DS. A pledge was made to launch this exciting endeavor before the end of the year for the Wii U, and with the 3DS compatibility following in early 2015. As the Super Smash Bros segment of the Digital Event played, viewers watched on as Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata battled with Nintendo of America COO Reggie Fils-Aime. Within moments it looked as if Reggie had truly kicked his bosses\’ ass, and taken his name to boot! As Fils-Aime celebrated the premature triumph in his oafish manner, Iwata pulled a Mario figurine from his jacket pocket and placed it against the Wii U GamePad’s NFC reader. A Mario \”Figurine Player\” appeared on screen joining the skirmish, and taking revenge for his human’s trouncing previously. It was with this moment that gamers around the world realized just what Nintendo had in store for them with the NFP project. Next on the agenda, once the Super Smash Bros segment had concluded, Fils-Aime returned to discuss the NFP project in full. Brandishing the same Mario figurine in his hand that Iwata used previously, he went on to explain that he would only be defeated by \”using a little magic\”. The magic in question is a line of products, exclusive to Nintendo platforms, still in development known as Amiibo which is set to innovate in the Toys-to-Life genre.

What is an Amiibo? An Amiibo is a figurine based on one of Nintendo’s rich character library with an embedded Near-Field Communication (NFC) chip, compatible with every Wii U system. All players have to do is touch their Amiibo to the NFC reader on the Wii U GamePad controller and that character will spring to life in a whole range of compatible software. The NFC functionality not only uploads unique character information to games, but allows additional data to be uploaded back to the figurine. This means that everyone’s own collection of Amiibo will be entirely unique to them as they evolve, featuring their own play style and experience.