Nintendo on Animal Crossing spinoffs: Honestly, we just wanted Animal Crossing amiibo

The developer of the Animal Crossing game series and creative lead Aya Kyogoku has revealed that both Animal Crossing spinoffs, Amiibo Festival and Happy Home Designer, are purely born of the want to be a part of Nintendo's amiibo product.

There has yet to be a full fledged Animal Crossing game on the Wii U and as far as we know, there isn't one in development. It looks as though Nintendo is focused more on utilizing the amiibo with spinoffs than bringing the series to the Wii U as a full game.

"Initially when the Amiibo was announced, there was nothing really said about Animal Crossing amiibos or any plans for that matter,"  said Aya Kyogoku in an interview with US Gamer.  "But as the Animal Crossing team, we were confident that if there was one, it would be really cute… honestly, we just wanted Animal Crossing amiibo. We wanted the company [Nintendo] to make Animal Crossing amiibo, so that's why we made a game that works with them."

This revelation is unfortunate to fans who enjoy the series and weren't looking for the series to devolve into amiibo marketing tools. When we will see a true Animal Crossing game remains unknown, but Kyoguku did say "once Happy Home Designer and Amiibo Festival come out, the development for the rest of the Animal Crossing series will continue. " The follow-up to that statement was that they would like to integrate the use amiibo cards and amiibo into the coming games in the series.

My thoughts: We haven't seen a true Animal Crossing game for the Wii U yet and the first one coming to the Wii U is a spinoff. It feels like a marketing ploy to get us into amiibo (if you haven't joined in on the amiibo  hunt).