Gotta catch ’em all.
Axiogame, a relatively unknown manufacturer who specialise in game customisation gizmos, have been going out of their way to upset Nintendo this week.
Some of the gizmos sold on their site are fairly above board – replacement parts for fixing systems or third-party peripherals – but others are on the darker side of tinkering. You’ll also find mod-chips, homebrew adapters, glitchers and an assortment of other things that will void your warranty and wind the manufacturers right up.
Most of that stuff is pretty invasive though, and you have to be pretty serious about doing it to take the risk. It’s all a far cry from the days of the Game Genie/Game Shark cheat cartridges, those little devices that plugged between your console and the cartridge to allow you to circumvent the rules of the game.
But Axiogame’s latest product is a bit different.
The Axiogame Amiiqo (yes, Amiiqo) is a customisable NFC device that allows you to impersonate any Amiibo available on the market. The Amiiqo looks a little like a plastic POG (remember those?) and is around the size of the base stand of any standard Amiibo. Seems fairly innocuous.
But if you hook the Amiiqo up to any Android device via NFC, you’ll be able to load the data from any of the official Amiibo available on the market onto it, and use them in your game. The Amiiqo has the capacity to store the data of 200 different Amiibo and they can be cycled through on the fly, using buttons on the device to save you having to hook up to your phone.
On the product listing, Axiogame looked like they were trying to make a small effort to legitimise the Amiiqo:
Did you know amiiqo has special powers. It collects figurines and keeps them safe.
But they couldn’t keep a straight face, and quickly caved in to the Amiiqo’s true purpose:
With Amiiqo and the help of some friends (or the internet) you can own ALL existing Amiibo’s including the rarest ones, this way you can progress much much faster. Amiiqo is the ultimate Amiibo collection in the palm of your hand. What more can you expect from Amiiqo? Scheduled to come from Amiiqo are features such as, added compatibility, cheat system and new transfer/control methods & apps.
Nintendo have been quiet about the Amiiqo thus far, but it’s probably fair to assume their lawyers are working on a takedown as we speak.
Thanks to Eurogamer for the original story.
Prefer to support Nintendo and buy legitimate Amiibo? Check out the current listings on Amazon.