Since the inception of amiibo, I've been one of those weirdos who ever, ever so carefully made small slits along the underside of their packaging and used tiny tools to extract the metallic sticker Nintendo was using to prevent the scanning of figures while still packaged. Why? Although technically no longer "mint in box", they maintained the illusion well, yet could now be scanned and used normally on WiiU or 3DS. (By the by, last year Nintendo finally got wise: They added another layer of plastic and thicker cardboard with tabs to prevent scanning, requiring a more invasive "surgery". This is how it went:
Enter Switch and the ability to use 15 compatible amiibo to get some pretty rad stuff in Breath of the Wild. Imagine my horror when the Joy-Cons and Pro Controller both refused to read my painstakingly modded amiibo it was simply a matter of distance. Nintendo somehow, wickedly, reduced the range at which Switch controllers will read NFC chips.
The only way to read packaged amiibo now seemed to be snipping a hole through the outer plastic layer, inner plastic layer, and metallized cardboard strip, then thrusting a Joy-Con down into the jerryrigged travesty (the Pro is simply too large):
Nuh-uh. Nizzasty, not to mention tremendously inconvenient. So I broke down and did the unthinkable...
Yep. In a frenzy of pique, I tore open amiibo after amiibo, even the artificially rare Sheik and Smash version of Toon Link. I'd had it. I'm done. Converted. A new man. And indeed, it feels as though a dark, obsessive cloud of misguided collector-mindset perfectionism has been purged from my consciousness.
I'm not sure whether to thank Nintendo or shake my fist in rage at them, but hey I can scan the Zelda amiibo with ease now, and not look silly in the process. Anyway, I haven't seen it mentioned yet and thought it warranted bringing up. In short, amiibo scan at a much shorter distance on Switch than they do on either WiiU or 3DS. The carefully-remove-the-metallic-sticker "exploit" is dead.
Lock in a cardboard-backed cage of plastic if old.
Enter Switch and the ability to use 15 compatible amiibo to get some pretty rad stuff in Breath of the Wild. Imagine my horror when the Joy-Cons and Pro Controller both refused to read my painstakingly modded amiibo it was simply a matter of distance. Nintendo somehow, wickedly, reduced the range at which Switch controllers will read NFC chips.
The only way to read packaged amiibo now seemed to be snipping a hole through the outer plastic layer, inner plastic layer, and metallized cardboard strip, then thrusting a Joy-Con down into the jerryrigged travesty (the Pro is simply too large):
Nuh-uh. Nizzasty, not to mention tremendously inconvenient. So I broke down and did the unthinkable...
Yep. In a frenzy of pique, I tore open amiibo after amiibo, even the artificially rare Sheik and Smash version of Toon Link. I'd had it. I'm done. Converted. A new man. And indeed, it feels as though a dark, obsessive cloud of misguided collector-mindset perfectionism has been purged from my consciousness.
I'm not sure whether to thank Nintendo or shake my fist in rage at them, but hey I can scan the Zelda amiibo with ease now, and not look silly in the process. Anyway, I haven't seen it mentioned yet and thought it warranted bringing up. In short, amiibo scan at a much shorter distance on Switch than they do on either WiiU or 3DS. The carefully-remove-the-metallic-sticker "exploit" is dead.
Lock in a cardboard-backed cage of plastic if old.
