Nintendo characters come to life in new ways as amiiboTM – interactive figures that have the ability to communicate with multiple specially designed games by just touching them to the Wii U GamePad controller. Nintendo plans to release first series of amiibo this year alongside Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.

FEATURES:

• amiibo can interact with compatible games when players touch them to the Wii U GamePad controller, reading character data into games and saving data to the figure.

• Different compatible games will use amiibo in different ways. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U will be the first game to use amiibo. Games like Mario Kart 8, Mario Party 10, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker and Yoshi’s Woolly World are also planned to support amiibo.

• In Super Smash Bros., players can battle alongside or against their amiibo characters, leveling them up in the process. They can then bring them to a friend who has a Wii U and the game to show off how they’ve trained and customized their characters.

• A new NFC reader/writer, which is being designed for Nintendo 3DS, is scheduled to launch in 2015.