Animal Crossing’s sold-out Sanrio amiibo cards have the internet crying – Polygon

If you logged in this morning thinking you were going to successfully order Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ Sanrio amiibo cards, bless your optimistic lil’ heart. My sweet summer child, these cardboard rectangles sold out seemingly within seconds after Target set them live. The stark situation has left many a Hello Kitty aficionado upset (or at least annoyed) on Friday.

After all, many folks actually got up early just to spend money on the twee set, only to be curtailed by scalpers who are now selling the Sanrio cards for a fortune on websites like eBay. Worse, some thought they’d secured the Hello Kitty cards for pick-up in store, because their carts were full … only to receive an error, or a message that they’d already sold out. Glitches were plentiful, judging from posts on social media and Polygon’s own experiences with the Target website.

This turn of events isn’t surprising: Scalpers have become a plague on nearly every nerdy collectible item within the last year, from PlayStation 5 consoles to Pokémon cards. Once it became clear that Animal Crossing’s Sanrio set would unlock a bunch of extremely cute items and characters, it was practically a foregone conclusion that these cards would sell out immediately.

It’s not a completely hopeless situation — many are reporting that simply going to a store works, or are resorting to hacked amiibo sellers on websites like Etsy. Polygon has also inquired with Nintendo about potential restocks, but in the meantime, at least the memes about this absurd situation are golden.