Nintendo on toys-to-life, managing amiibo stock. Splatoon and new I.P.

A portion of a GamesBeat interview with Nintendo's Scott Moffitt...

GamesBeat: It seems like Nintendo is getting a little faster, maybe, at jumping on trends and giving them the Nintendo treatment. You’re not the first one on toys-to-life, but once that idea was planted in the heads of your designers, they ran with it. It seems like user-generated content is happening the same way.

Moffitt: You’re right on that. Innovation, bringing something new and different to the party, is in our DNA. That’s what drives us and drives our developers. If there’s a way we can bring something new and imaginative to a trend that might have started elsewhere, or if we can create our own trend, that’s what powers the imagination of our developers. That’s what we try to deliver to our fans every time.

We’re the first handheld gaming device that has the ability to leverage Amiibo, leverage toys-to-life. Our Amiibos are playable across multiple games. You’ve seen some of them. Hopefully you saw the Yoshi’s Woolly World Amiibo application. With your existing Amiibo—Say you have a Mario Amiibo. You can put the Amiibo on your game pad and your Yoshi will take on the look of Mario. Mustache, overalls, hat and all. The applications that developers are coming up with to leverage the Amiibos consumers already have are a lot of fun to watch.

GamesBeat: With Amiibo, the only difficulty I can see is that you almost go back to the days of the cartridge inventory management problem. Now you have physical inventory to keep track of, much more of it, and you have to predict supply and demand.

Moffitt: We’re super excited by the response that fans have had to Amiibo. But we’re well aware that there’s been some frustration as far as finding Amiibo and being able to collect all the Amiibos they want. We’re working hard to increase the supply and produce more in response to demand. We’re also working with our corporate affairs team to more actively message and communicate when new Amiibos will be available, when restock is coming, and to be more open and transparent about how to find them and where they can be found.

We’re also working with retailers to improve the buying experience at retail. We’re doing a lot on that front. But it starts with making more. The response has been tremendous. We’ve sold more than 10 million Amiibos globally. We’ve sold two-thirds of that in our markets here. We could have sold more, clearly. We’re enthusiastic about the response. We’re also excited about the imagination our developers are bringing to it. But it’s a different kind of product to manage and stock.

GamesBeat: Splatoon is a big success and a new IP. I wonder if that success makes Nintendo think a little differently about new ideas. You could have made that a Mario game.

Moffitt: You’re probably right. That could have been under Mario. We love the fan response to Splatoon. It’s gotten off to a fantastic start worldwide. It’s driving console sales for us. It’s generated Wii U momentum, and that’s momentum we’re going to carry through to Super Mario Maker, Star Fox, Animal Crossing, Amiibo Festival, and beyond.

I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to play the game, but I loved the comment coming out of E3 last year. “Who would have thought the No. 1 FPS game at E3 would be developed by Nintendo?” The reaction we’re getting from our fans is “It’s a great game I can play, but I also finally have an FPS game that I can play with my son or daughter and feel good about it.” You still have all the fun elements of strategy in that game, of weapon selection. There are new maps being released, new content being released every week for that game.

It is a new IP that we believe has a bright future. I’m convinced that game is going to have a great holiday. A lot of fans are reading and hearing about it now. They’re going to want to get in and play that game. It has different modes that appeal to different kinds of gamers. It’s a pick-up-and-play FPS for people who haven’t played an FPS before. It allows you an easy on-ramp. But the ranked mode is as hard as it gets for core gamers that want an intense experience. The four-on-four multiplayer is where the game shines, but the single-player mode is getting a lot of positive buzz as well. There’s a lot to be unlocked and enjoyed and appreciate in that game.