New Amiibo Pre-Order Frustrate Buyers as Big Sales Arrive

It’s only been two days since Nintendo, makers of the Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS, announced a wave of new Amiibo figures for use in their latest games, but already excitement is high. Video games and children’s retailer Toys R Us is now taking new Amiibo pre-orders and slashing prices on the Amiibo figures it already offers directly to users by 40%. Target and GameStop have also kicked off pre-orders.

Toys R Us started taking pre-orders for many of the new Amiibo action figures this week, just days after Nintendo first revealed the new line-up in the latest of its Nintendo Direct video broadcasts. New Amiibo characters available at the retail outlet include many, but not all of the characters Nintendo showed off. Amiibo are small figures with built-in NFC technology so that players can drop cool digital extras in their games.

Pac-Man, Greninja, Charizard, Lucina, Wario and Robin are all available for Toys R Us shoppers to pre-order ahead of their release. Unfortunately, Amiibo fans have hit the retailer’s site so hard that even pre-orders are sold out. For example, Wario pre-orders are no longer available. Anyone who does manage to get a new Amiibo pre-order will see their new figure delivered to them by May 29th. Toy R Us does offer free shipping, but not for anything that costs less than $49 dollars. That means users will need to pre-order multiple new figures if they are looking to offset the cost of shipping and save themselves a trip to a local Toy’s R Us retailer store instead.

Toys R Us marked the festivities with a big sale on Amiibo action figures that it already offers. Donkey Kong, Yoshi and Princess Peach are all just $10.99 instead of the $13.99 Amiibo figures usually cost. Those who want an Amiibo not include in the slight discount can still save too. Every Amiibo figure is Buy 1 Get 1 40% off. As such, purchasing that second Amiibo after purchasing the first at full price only costs $8.40. Of course, that’s before taxes and any shipping costs shoppers incur if they don’t meet that $40 threshold.

Nintendo seems to have made a decent effort to space out the availability of the figures. Toys R Us shoppers looking for Jigglypuff, one of the other new Amiibo figures Nintendo revealed, will need to head to Target where it’s available exclusively. Unfortunately, Target is already sold out of its pre-order allotment. Toys R Us is the only place to get Greninja in the United States. Polygon is reporting that users will need to go into their local GameStop to reserve some of the other new Amiibo figures announced this week. Ness, Robin, Charizard, Pac-Man, Lucina, Wario Inkling Boy, Inkling Girl are all available there. Each of those figures sell for $12.99 according to the outlet. Inkling Boy, Inkling Girl and Squid will come in one big themed pack for $34.99. These three figures are specifically for use in Splatoon, the upcoming online arena game for the Wii U.

Read: New Amiibo Characters and Release Details Revealed

Amiibo action figures are compatible with the new Nintendo 3DS XL that debuted earlier this year and the Nintendo Wii U. Different characters do different things, for example some of Nintendo’s new Amiibo line-up unlock classic digital game downloads from Nintendo’s eShop. Because you need NFC technology to communicate with them, Amiibo aren’t currently compatible with every Nintendo handheld console. Earlier this week Nintendo confirmed plans for a separate Amiibo reader that’ll allow support for handhelds other than the new Nintendo 3DS XL.

Nintendo has another wave of new Amiibo action figures planned for later too. Those include a set of Yoshi characters made of actual yarn for Yoshi’s Woolly World.