Continuing what has been started with both Skylanders and Disney Infinity franchises, Nintendo have announced that they will be producing their own range of toys that will be supported by the Wii U console. Unlike other toy-based series however which tend to limit themselves and their “portals” to one line of games only, this system built into the Wii U Gamepad will feature support for a range of games including Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.
The toys are to begin being made available at the launch of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, and will continue to be supported in the future, with one toy having the potential to be supported by several different games. A full list of promoted features are available below:
- amiibo can interact with compatible games when players touch them to the Wii U GamePad controller, reading character data into games and saving data to the figure.
- Different compatible games will use amiibo in different ways. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U will be the first game to use amiibo. Games like Mario Kart 8, Mario Party 10, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker and Yoshi’s Woolly World are also planned to support amiibo.
- In Super Smash Bros., players can battle alongside or against their amiibo characters, leveling them up in the process. They can then bring them to a friend who has a Wii U and the game to show off how they’ve trained and customized their characters.
- A new NFC reader/writer, which is being designed for Nintendo 3DS, is scheduled to launch in 2015
