Greninja, Jigglypuff amiibo figures announced in Nintendo Direct
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In the most recent Nintendo Direct, the fourth wave of amiibo figures for Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS/Wii U, which was revealed in January's Nintendo Direct to contain six figures including Charizard, has been given a release date of May 29, 2015 in the United States and Europe (and South Africa), and May 28, 2015 in Japan.
New figures
The fourth wave of Super Smash Bros. amiibo figures was originally known to contain only six figures, but Greninja and Jigglypuff figures were revealed to be added to the collection in this Nintendo Direct, bringing the total number of figures in this wave to eight. The total number of Pokémon figures in the entire amiibo collection is now five, with Pikachu being released in Wave 1 and Lucario being released in Wave 3.
The fifth and sixth waves of Super Smash Bros. amiibo figures were also announced. The fifth wave will be released in the United States and Europe (and South Africa) sometime in June 2015, and in Japan on June 11, 2015. The sixth wave will be released in the United States in September 2015, and in Europe (and South Africa) and Japan in July 2015. Neither wave is currently known to contain any Pokémon figures; an amiibo for every Pokémon character currently in the game has already been released or has been announced for release. However, Mewtwo, who will be released as DLC later this month, has not yet been released as an amiibo.
No release period for any of the amiibo has been provided for Australia.
amiibo cards
The first amiibo cards have been announced. These cards will interact with games just like amiibo figures, but are physically cards rather than amiibo figures. The first series of amiibo cards are based on Animal Crossing characters, and will work with the new game Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer. These cards will be released in Northern Hemisphere fall 2015 in North America, Europe, Australia, and Japan.
NFC reader/writer
An NFC reader/writer will be released at the same time as the amiibo cards. This device allows the original Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo 3DS XL and Nintendo 2DS to read from and write to amiibo.
Nintendo's Greatest Bits
A new free piece of software will be available for Wii U on the Nintendo eShop, called amiibo Tap: Nintendo's Greatest Bits in North America and Touch & Play: Nintendo Classics Highlights in Europe and Australia. It will be released in North America in spring 2015, and in Europe, Australia and Japan in May 2015.
In this software, the player touches an amiibo to the Wii U GamePad. Upon doing so, they unlock a restricted version of a Virtual Console release of an NES or SNES game. This game can only be played for only three minutes. The game is randomly assigned to each amiibo, rather than being assigned based on the character or written data.
Sample games have multiple "scenes", which represent parts of the game such as different stages; tapping the amiibo to the GamePad again will change scenes.
While it may not be a complete list, the following games were seen in at least one region's Nintendo Direct as part of this service:
- Balloon Fight
- Donkey Kong
- Donkey Kong Jr.
- Dr. Mario
- Excitebike
- F-Zero
- Ice Climber
- Kirby Super Star
- Kirby's Adventure
- Kirby's Dream Course
- Mach Rider
- Metroid
- Pinball
- Super Mario Bros.
- Super Mario Bros. 2
- Super Mario Bros. 3
- Super Mario World
- Super Metroid
- The Legend of Zelda
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
- Wario's Woods
- Wrecking Crew
- Yoshi
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link