barbzilla said:
Anyone else feel that they are a strange knock off of the Dreamcast's interactive Memory cards?
Not really to me. That would imply Amiibo either have a screen and mini controls or we could put two or more Amiibo together without a Wii U/N3DS and have them dual. They actually remind me of that seldom used Mii save feature of Wii remotes.
kilenem said:
Not trying to defend Nintendo but this isn't new and actually is there bread and butter if you count the fact you have to have two different versions of a pokemon game to complete a pokedex when pokemon first started out. Know I think you need like 5 or more.
Quite true. I think Nintendo of Japan's original reasoning was that splitting the Pokemon into two games meant players would socialize to collect them all. Japan's dense population and popularity of portable games there (because of the train/bus rides and small apartments with shared TVs) lent to this being relatively easy over there. I'd bet NoA and other regional offices saw that marketing plan and thought to themselves "I'd bet a lot of people will buy both games, and maybe another Gameboy, too." The socializing aspect might work almost as good in congested cities in the west, but, for the less urban kids, finding friends who had Gameboys, the right version of Pokemon and the right critter to trade was really hard. I gave up and used my sister's Gameboy and her copy of Red (Admit it. We all did.) to get the rest, as she had given up months (years?) ago.
The difference, however, is at least you could find the games. (I remember a GBC shortage for a couple months in the late 90s, but I don't think Red or Blue was scarce. Correct me if I'm wrong.) If you wanted to get all of the 'mons and were willing to spend oodles for the MSRP of 2 games, 2 Gameboys and the link cable (minus anything you could borrow from a friend), you could go out and drop cash right on the counter and be walking out with the goods. Now with Amiibo, good luck finding even the rare ones you wanted (without paying a shady guy halfway across your region way too much extra), much less collecting all of a set.