Nintendo just aren't making an effort with CE's these days

[Gemini-Phoenix]

I've noticed lately that Nintendo seem to be not making as much of an effort with their CE's as they once did. Nintendo are known for giving certain franchises that extra special treatment, but lately it feels as if they're going down the lazy route by just bundling an Amiibo with a game and calling it a day

Take the Wii-U for example - We started out with a glorious Legend Of Zelda: Wind Waker CE with an awsome Ganondorf statue. Mario Kart 8 followed with a spiny blue shell statue. Then we had the Hyrule Warriors CE with a scarf (a bit of an odd pack-in, but what the hey). Shortly afterwards SEGA followed with the impressive Bayonetta 2 CE. Those are all good examples of CE's which we expect to see, as collectors. Then we saw the birth of the Amiibo, which was first packed-in with Super Smash Bros U, then Mario Party 10, now Splatoon, and soon Yoshi's Woolly World...

This trend looks to continue for the foreseeable future, and it all feels a little cheap and lazy to me. It's as if Nintendo either can't be bothered to come up with a piece of merch to pack-in with a game, or just think that packing an Amiibo with the game is a quick and easy win while still satisfying consumer demand for a "better-than-standard-release" edition

I understand that the purpose of these editions is to encourage consumers to buy the game that they may or may not be on the fence about buying to begin with. As far as a marketing point of view goes, they have done their job and have encouraged me to buy these titles on day one, where otherwise I would have left it and left it and picked them up cheaply in the future. They have also done their job selling me Amiibo figures which I would not have bothered with had I purchased the games separately. The collector part of me feels compelled to buy these editions because they are CE's, but also makes me question whether these editions were actually worthwhile when both items are available separately

In the case of Splatoon, they do at least offer an Inkling Squid Amiibo figure which is not available separately (at time of writing), so there's the rarity appeal right there, but does that really make up for the laziness, and is it really fair to Amiibo collectors who missed out on this edition (or were victim of the stolen GAME delivery)?

I would like Nintendo to go back to offering us proper CE's like before, and to stop bundling an Amiibo with every new game release that comes out. They should either make a proper effort, or not bother at all!