Counterfeit Amiibo’s on the Rise

An in-depth report by Nintendo Inquirer shows that counterfeit Amiibo’s are popping up on the market in increasing numbers

When you have a product as successful as the Amiibo there’s always the chance that a group of people will try to take advantage of the situation by creating counterfeit versions. It happens with trading cards, toys, even digital content codes so it should come as no surprise that counterfeit Amiibo’s have come onto the scene. Adding a new layer of frustration to the lives of collectors who have already been fighting severe shortages while trying to complete their collection.

After contending with scalpers trying to cash in on the Amiibo craze by selling the rarest figures at ridiculous prices fans will be hit hard by the news of counterfeit Amiibo’s. No matter how they take the news, however, collectors need to know what to watch out for now that the fakes have appeared at various retailers and online. That’s why Nintendo Inquirer has put together an in-depth report on which Amiibo’s are being faked and the best way to tell them apart from the real deal.

According to the report from Nintendo Inquirer the first way to tell if your looking at one of the counterfeit Amiibo’s is the packaging. The fakes ship in boxes with nothing more than a picture and the figures name on the front that look nothing like the genuine article. Out of the packaging collectors will have to look at the figures closely to be able to tell the difference between a fake and the genuine article. Making sure that the paint, body posture, and materials all look the way that they should.

The four most heavily counterfeited Amiibo’s: Link, Samus, Mario, and Pikachu all have distinct differences from the figures they’re copying. Counterfeit Amiibo’s of Link and Mario for example use wrong color of paint coming out darker than the real figures. Mario’s fire ball and Link’s yellow stand are also cloudy in the counterfeit versions rather than transparent. The Samus and Pikachu counterfeit’s come closer to the real figures in color but their body shapes and stances give them away.

Now that the word is out about what to look for in the counterfeit versions of these Amiibo’s, new fakes might start to appear on the market. Collectors will have to be wary about where they buy their Amiibo’s from, checking out every figure in detail before they buy.

Source: [highlight]Nintendo Inquirer[/highlight]