Nintendo today apologized for the shortage of amiibo figurines, and promised to be more communicative with customers about when new ones are on their way.
Nintendo's amiibo arrived last year, but the company had trouble keeping up with demand. In February, it blamed a U.S. port strike, but some versions were in short supply due to retailer exclusivity.
"We understand how frustrating it can be at times if consumers are unable to find certain figures, and we apologize for that," Nintendo said in a Facebook post. "We're trying to meet the demands of our fans and consumers by increasing the amount of amiibo we manufacture and ship to retail. We may continue to see consumer demand outpace supply levels for certain characters at times, but we will do our best to prevent that from happening."
Amiibo is Nintendo's line of Skylanders and Disney Infinity-like miniature toys. Your amiibo stores game data, so when you touch your amiibo to a Wii U GamePad, character data is downloaded into the game you're playing, or you can send data to the figurine.
Character options include Mario, Pikachu, Donkey Kong, Fox, and Yoshi. Going forward, "some figures will be easier to find than others," Nintendo said today. "We are constantly looking for the opportunity to reissue amiibo and are already making plans to bring back some currently out-of-stock amiibo figures."
Also on tap is Animal Crossing amiibo cards, which will arrive by year's end.