Its not like Skylander or Infinity that are their own based game
Isn't all the Skylanders content 'on the disc' already as well though? Either way it's basically new characters for $15, which isn't too bad. It's aimed at children though, they can collect the figures, save games to them, play at their friend's house with them and get new content all in one 'toy'. Not sure how Amiibos work by comparison. Amiibo is a stupid name.
If the Splatoon unlocks are just throwaway little 'challenge rooms' then I don't think it's a big deal. It seems more like a bonus for getting the Figurine rather than quality DLC locked behind buying the figure.
It's already given me more fun than Binary Domain ever did.
!!
Nights into Dreams was 2 hours long and well worth the 60$ it cost when it came out. Please stop equating length/number of levels to content quality/duration.
What's actually lame is you assuming those are the same people. I'm not sure where this myth comes from that Nintendo get's special treatment. Nobody gave them a pass for anything. The gaming media was and still is the Wiiu's harshest critic. Did you even read ANY of the Splatoon reviews? They all cited lack of content as a negative.
As for myself, I think the game is well worth the 60$ I spent on it. Best fun I've had in a while. But I probably shouldn't debate with people who say things like "Nintendo fans will buy into anything."
I would also point out that Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown (the best game ever made) had DLC that was more expensive than the actual 'base' game. And it was single player content (guffaw) and costumes only.
As said above, I have put so many hours into that game, had I paid $100 for it I wouldn't feel ripped off.
Having said that, I think it is expected now that games of that nature have a cheap 'entry point' at least, like VF's vanilla game without costumes, and then the ability to expand on it if you really enjoy it.
Would have been interesting if Splatoon had a cut down release for $20 and then you paid for maps/characters/aesthetics/single player stuff for extra monies.
I used to do this, but changed my stance on it. The pre-order stuff they usually have is just stuff like some extra weapon I won't use or whatever. I do think it's dumb when it's stuff that feels like it would be missed from the full game like characters or story stuff, like WB Games and SEGA have done.
Amiibo haven't been used for locking out anything that you'd miss though.
Ugh, those stupid pre-order weapons and shit that just break the game sometimes. I hate that. As if games aren't easy enough nowadays, they then give you really strong weapons that can make it even easier (Evil Within did this to an extent).
Either way, nintendo has struck gold with this. What I hope is that the addition of amiibo sales on top of software sales can potentially give projects a bit of a safenet to be big. Or niche games to be greenlit much sooner etc.
The best thing for Nintendo is that there is much, much more margin in Amiibos than software from my understanding.
