It was announced a while ago that Nintendo's Amiibo figurines would have some compatibility with Mario Kart 8. Today, they announced how. It turns out that if you scan select Amiibo figures to your gamepad, you'll unlock character-themed racing costumes for your Miis to wear in Mario Kart 8.
This is kind of a basic feature and I admit to being a little disappointed, although I understand that building Amiibo into a game after it has been released isn't as easy as incorporating them into the original development roadmap. That said, this feature does raise some interesting possibilities. With Amiibo, you don't just unlock costumes from obvious characters like Mario, Luigi, Peach and Yoshi; you also get Link, Kirby, Samus and Captain Falcon costumes.
With the inclusion of Link as a playable DLC character next May, this brings Mario Kart closer to something I've wanted for years now: Super Smash Kart. It just makes sense--even with Mario Kart 8, the series has been running low on original ideas for several iterations. Expanding it to include all Nintendo IPs is just the logical next step for the venerable racing franchise.
