The Tech Problems Inside Nintendo's Amiibo Toys

An anonymous reader writes: Nintendo's line of amiibo figurines are coveted by fans and collectors, even scalpers and robbers, with some harder to come by models fetching high sums on auction sites. But as a new article points out, every model suffers from similar technical drawbacks when it comes to interacting with the Japanese games giant's Wii U and 3DS consoles: there is currently only one game for instance that uses the write function of each figure's NFC chip, rather than simply reading it. But if there were more, Nintendo would be faced with another problem: where to store the data for each, since amiibo can currently only store one title's data at a time. The company may be looking to solve some of these issues with its upcoming NX system, but will it be too little too late?

Comments

Somewhere PT Barnum is smiling

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

So you're storing your data in a doll, and you have to buy a doll for each game you play? And people are still willing to pay above retail for these dolls? Sounds like Nintendo's happy with the current model to me, and somewhere PT Barnum is smiling.

Re:Somewhere PT Barnum is smiling

[TheCastro1689]

Found this http://www.polygon.com/2015/8/...

One game, one save

[Calydor]

So let me get this straight.

Only one game currently uses the write function. The chip can only HOLD data for one game. And the whole problem boils down to, "But what if someone in some indeterminate future decides to use the write function as well?"

While yes, they should have thought of that during development, this currently seems kind of like a non-issue. And wouldn't the simplest solution be using the normal save space on the Wii U (I assume it has that, right?) requiring something similar to an encryption key or password from the given doll to use the data that applies to it?

Re:How much data storage?

[Yosho]

The hardware in the Amiibo have 4 kB of writeable space, which is almost inconceivably tiny nowadays. You could fit enough data in there for a couple of games if you're using minimal, tightly-packed C structures, but nobody does that any more when every game console has enough space that you can use dozens or even hundred of kB for storing saved games.

To be fair, I really don't know why they couldn't have just put a whole MB of storage space on the chip and then allocated something like 4 kB per game. Sometimes Nintendo makes baffling hardware decisions.