As anyone in the gaming industry knows, Nintendo has been struggling lately, both financially and from what appears to be a lack of titles driving sales of the Wii U. There seems to be a rather simple yet innovative solution on the cards–pun intended–and it is one that could be a massive success for big-N.
It is no secret that Pokémon is a massive franchise around the world, and though it would be cool to see someone actually collect them all (and spend a fortune doing so), it really wouldn’t make sense for Nintendo to produce amiibo figures for each of the franchise’s 718 creatures. There is a great way Nintendo could do and the key lies in expanding its Animal Crossing amiibo card line to the Pokémon Trading Card Game.
With the wild popularity that the trading card game continues to see, there are a number of ways this could benefit Nintendo. With a relatively low cost for producing amiibo cards, they could be sold at a decent markup, covering the financial bases. The profit margins may not be as high as traditional paper-only cards, but Nintendo can’t afford to maintain its profit margins just for the sake of maintaining its profit margins.
It would also set the collectors world on fire, as it would introduce a new set to collect. It could bridge the gap between those collectors who have yet to jump onto the Wii U bandwagon and, conversely, do the same for Pokémon game diehards who perhaps haven’t jumped into the trading card game in a while.
Nintendo has proven that it is able to generate tons of sales of their trading card game, and while it wouldn’t be as simple as adding amiibo functionality to existing Pokémon card artwork, it isn’t a secret that the world would love amiibo Pokémon to become a real thing.
There would need to be a game (or hopefully, many of them) to bridge the gap between the physical cards and the digital world. A simple trading card game could be made, or even a small Pokédex app. Of course, a game like Pokémon Stadium could return with a new game on the Wii U, but that wouldn’t be necessary for day one of the cards’ availability.
With two consoles to choose from, it wouldn’t exactly be difficult to make one of those simpler apps for both platforms, making it even more fun to trade those amiibo cards on the go with friends.
What do you think about the possibility of Nintendo making Pokémon amiibo cards a real thing? We’re firmly in the camp that it should happen sooner, rather than later, as keeping it a separate entity from an actual Pokémon game (as opposed to launching alongside X-2/Y-2, or whatever the next instalment of the series it) would prevent confusion as to whether or not the cards are specific to those games.
It could really go either way; Nintendo could do something quite soon, with a Nintendo Direct to make up for the lacklustre E3 performance this week. Or, they could delay until this becomes something more like The Last Guardian which means we’ll see it … in 2021.