There are an underground line of cards featuring NFC chips that contain cloned Amiibo data, essentially acting as Amiibo but without the figure/statue. I just ordered a set from ebay (shipped from China) of all 22 Zelda Amiibo for £14. That's the price of a single Amiibo. As much as I, and Jeff, wish that Amiibo actually did something in games, the amount of figures you have to buy becomes a serious financial investment. Breath of the Wild has many exclusive unlockables tied to Amiibo and this was the only realistic way I could get that stuff. But I realize it's super shady.

What do you think of cards? Have you bought or used them? Would you prefer Nintendo to release them rather than the figures?

At least 50% of the reason I buy Amiibo is to have a figure on my shelf. I'm personally glad I don't have any more Zelda Amiibo because I just now finished upgrading all the bonus armor for the figures I have. I'd feel the need to farm more star fragments and ore if I had any more. It would have been nice to have a Peach or Bowser Amiibo for Mario Odyssey, but now that I have all the costumes, it's not a big deal.

@alistercat- i'd be interested to know what your experience is like once you receive/use the cards.

reason being- i'd love to have that in-game stuff for zelda, but the very LAST thing i want is a plastic figurine.

I got a pack of blank NFC cards a to use for the Zelda costume unlocks and found the process of writing to them with my phone pretty easy. I don't think the value proposition of amiibo is very good if you only want them for in game content, because most of the stuff you unlock is very minor.

That being said, I do own far more amiibo than I should because they're really great, high quality statues. I'd honestly much prefer if they didn't do anything in game at all.

@playerprime: I think these are pre installed with the NFC data, and art from the box on each one. Blank ones would be a good idea too.

The cards work fine as does the Amiiqo if you can find one... not that i'd know... cough.

I looked at them around the time Breath of the Wild came out, but I didn't feel good about paying someone for them. It's probably a silly rationalization, but I generally feel OK about ROMs and that kind of thing if they provided as a free way to play games I otherwise wouldn't be able to play. There's a certain community spirit I appreciate about the emulation community. However, I don't like the idea of anyone making a business out of it. In the case of Amiibo cards, I'd be fine making them myself, but when I looked into it those blank NFC cards were still a little more expensive than I'd like. Way cheaper than actual Amiibos of course, but still too much for some stuff that should have been available in the game in the first place.

Just thought I'd update. I ordered a collection of all 22 Zelda cards. They were advertised as having images from the amiibo boxes on them, but when they arrived they have bootleg imitations of the amiibo they represent. Not too bad. The quality of the cards themselves are pretty high, especially for the price. They don't read very well on the edges but for general use holding them on the right joycon for a few seconds will read just fine.

Considering how many costumes are locked behind amiibo (not to mention epona) I don't feel too bad about buying these but they are cloning amiibo data. I don't feel great about that part. Outside of this use case I won't be buying amiibo cards.