How amiibo are organized
Every amiibo has a small NFC chip inside, and the chip holds an ID that tells games which amiibo it is. That ID places each specific amiibo figure or card in a series, a franchise, and a character, and this site groups amiibo the same way.
An example
Mario from Super Smash Bros. and Cat Mario look different and were released in different lines, but their chips say they're both the character Mario:
| amiibo Figure | Mario (Super Smash Bros.) | Cat Mario (Super Mario) |
|---|---|---|
| - Series | Super Smash Bros. | Super Mario |
| - Franchise | Mario | Mario |
| - Character | Mario | Cat Mario, a sub-character of Mario |
Game developers can choose the level of specificity at which scanned amiibo are checked: Specific figure/card, sub-character, character, or series.
Series
A series is the line an amiibo was released in, like Super Smash Bros., Super Mario or Splatoon. An amiibo series may contain characters from several franchises—Super Smash Bros. is a prime example.
Nintendo's European and Australian sites call these collections, as in the “Super Smash Bros. Collection”.
In three cases, amiibo life splits a series from the chips into smaller ones, because the chips don't tell them apart:
- The chips put every Animal Crossing figure and card in one series. Here they're split into the figures and each set of cards: Series 1 to Series 5, the promotional cards, the New Leaf Welcome amiibo cards and the Sanrio cards.
- The Street Fighter 6 figures, starter set cards and booster pack cards share one series on the chips, and are three series here.
- The chips put the Super Mario Cereal card and the Dark Souls figure together in a series for one-off amiibo. Here each has its own series.
Franchises
A franchise groups amiibo by the games their characters come from. In chip data, this is known as the game series. The Mario franchise, for example, gathers Mario characters from many series, from Super Mario to Super Smash Bros.
This is a useful grouping for franchises like Fire Emblem and Xenoblade Chronicles, where several characters are represented only in the Super Smash Bros. series and others in the franchise's dedicated series.
The chips store each franchise as a number rather than a name, so the franchise names on this site are the familiar names for those game franchises.
Characters and sub-characters
Every amiibo of the same character shares the same character ID on its chip, whatever series it's from. Some are a variation of that character, like Cat Mario or Dr. Mario, which the chips mark with a different variant number. amiibo life calls these sub-characters.
A game that doesn't know a sub-character will usually treat its amiibo as the main character, so Cat Mario works as Mario in games that support Mario.
Upcoming amiibo
An amiibo's chip data is usually only known once it's released and someone reads one. Until then, an announced amiibo's series, franchise and character are based on Nintendo's announcement, and are checked against its chip once it's out.
The chip data itself
The chip data information comes from the amiibo community, including the Hex Data Sheet credited at the bottom of every page.