Just how rare are some of Nintendo’s amiibo toys at launch?

You might want to get Marth now

While Nintendo provided me with the Link, Mario, and Kirby amiibo toys for testing with Super Smash Bros., acquiring the rest of the lot was completely up to me. So I decided to take a trip early this morning, survey any potential crowds, and see what I could get. I ended up nabbing the rest of the ones I needed, with some trouble.

I started off at GameStop (though there was a midnight release party there), and headed to Toys”R”Us, followed by two Targets and two Best Buy stores. Mario, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Link, Fox, Samus, and Pikachu were all readily available at all locations. Every store I went to (seven in total) had at least 30 units in stock for those characters. Peach and Kirby seemed more rare, but there were at least 15 units each. You should be good to go on all of the above for a few days if you can’t get to the store this morning.

Also at every location, there was a maximum of two Villagers and Wii Fit Trainers each left on the shelf, with a stock of roughly 10 units per store. GameStop stated that Villager, Wii Fit Trainer, and Marth were sold out entirely and were only available for pre-order customers. This was the case for at least 10 of their stores in my area after they checked their system.

But the most rare of all is without question Marth. By the time I had went to two stores and found zero of them, I got the idea to check Amazon — sure enough, they’re going for around $30 already. Speaking to the store reps, I found out that Toys”R”Us only received four Marths in total at my local store, and that all of the surrounding areas within a 30 mile radius were sold out. Best Buy didn’t get any Marths, and my fourth stop, the second Target, only had two — I picked up the last one.

GameStop, Toys”R”Us, Target, and Best Buy all seemed confident with additional shipments of every toy except the aforementioned three characters. Keep in mind that throughout the holiday season scalpers and collectors are going to likely find out when shipments are before the general public, and will be there bright and early to collect. I was told that at my local Toys”R”Us, someone had gotten there at the store’s opening and bought every Marth toy at once.

While the jury is out on whether or not Nintendo deliberately induced a shortage on these few rare figures or legitimately didn’t ship enough, you should definitely ask a friend if they’re going out to today to pick you up a rare toy if you wanted one. Or of course, just order them online, since most of them are available outside of Marth.