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Unreleased Amiibo Silhouettes Appear On Retail Kiosk
Nintendo's in-store Amiibo kiosks serve up essential information for the uninitiated, but could they be doing more than just that? We recently took some time to browse through one of the in-store kiosks Nintendo has set up at several retailers, and found a couple of peculiar silhouettes among some more recognizable ones.
Just below the recently announced Mario Amiibo from the upcoming Super Mario Bros. line, Nintendo included outlines of what appear to be Pikmin and Tom Nook from the Animal Crossing series. This was discussed in a Reddit thread three months ago, but since that point, the Mario Amiibo shown in the outline has been officially revealed, making the speculation of the two outlines in question potentially more credible. In addition, the Bowser Amiibo doesn't exactly match up with the two Bowser figures announced by Nintendo to this point, which could mean the designs weren't finalized when the kiosk was created, we're seeing another Bowser Amiibo at some point, or that these silhouettes mean nothing at all and the Mario Amiibo is just a coincidence.
The first wave of Amiibo figures arrived in stores November of last year, with Villager from the Animal Crossing series becoming one of the hardest to find figures. There haven't yet been any Amiibo figures released or announced for the Pikmin series.
Our Take
While certainly not a sure thing, I think it might be a good bet that Nintendo is planning Amiibos for the Animal Crossing and Pikmin series at some point in the near future. Animal Crossing: New Leaf was a hit for the 3DS when it launched in 2013, and with the New 3DS XL launching in the U.S. soon with NFC technology for scanning Amiibos already built-in, it wouldn't be too outlandish for Nintendo to want to update some of its most popular games to include Amiibo functionality.
The fact that these Amiibos appear alongside outlines of already existing or already announced Amiibos (even if the Bowser silhouette doesn't quite match up with either of his announced figures), combined with the fact that Nintendo went through the trouble of making those two outlines look like Amiibo figures – base and all – makes us think it means something. We might not see those Amiibo figures exactly as they are outlined, but with the new Miyamoto-led Pikmin movies, as well as the New 3DS XL hitting soon, we'd be surprised if Nintendo didn't capitalize upon the popularity of its NFC figures using those two series.
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