Nintendo’s amiibo , the upcoming interactive figurines for 3DS and Wii U games, might not be limited to first-party games. Nintendo is currently researching ways its third-party partners, including independent developers, can integrate the figurines into their games in 2015 and beyond.

“We’re having those conversations and we’re still early on because amiibo isn’t even going to launch until later this month,” licensing manager Damon Baker told IGN a press event yesterday. “We’re excited to see how that pans out but there’s a ton of interest from our third-party partners and we’re looking at what makes sense in terms of business models and levels of integration. There are really creative ideas that are coming through and we are working towards some opportunities for next year."Nintendo recently discussed its desire to make the figures useable across a variety of titles beyond any specific game the visual design of the amiibo. For example, Nintendo has announced that the entire line of Smash Wii U amiibo figures will unlock weapons and bonuses in Hyrule Warriors. It is an innovation that marketing director David Wharton believes both first and third-party developers can use to their advantage.“Think about our implementation for our products, it’s really developer-centric,” Wharton told IGN. “It’s really about opening up new capabilities and new ways of extending the value of games and bringing the functionality into games. As a company we’re interested in as many different creative explorations of that functionality."Exactly what that’s going to be in the future, not only for third-party but first-party, that story has yet to be written," he said. "We’ve got a couple of examples of how it’s going to look today -- but imagine the future, the sky is the limit.”Those new capabilities and functionalities will begin with the first wave of amiibo when Super Smash Bros. launches on the Wii U November 21.

Michael Martin is a freelance writer from Seattle who is hopelessly addicted to pop culture t-shirts. Send help on Twitter