The Wii U hits stores on Sunday, who's gonna grab one?

[MachineGex]

I was wondering who is going to grab the new Wii U on Sunday? I made the mistake to not reserve the system and I am hoping it doesn't turn out to be a mistake. Normally, I would wait, but my son's birthday is right before christmas and he has asked Santa for a Wii U(combo birthday-xmas present). I am hoping to head to Costco or Target and grab a system early sunday.

Who thinks the Wii U will hit like the original Wii did? Who reserved one?

BTW, I wasnt really that high on the Wii U until I played it at Nintendo RSVP event in Denver. That changed my mind. I really liked how they added the touch-pad controller. The multi-player games were a blast! Multi-player/co-op games are a blast, and the Wii U seems to really focus on those.

[RCM]

Who thinks the Wii U will hit like the original Wii did? Who reserved one?


Are you asking whether the Wii U will amass the same installed base as Wii? It's possible, but highly, highly unlikely. I'd feel comfortable betting my testicles that Wii U won't get to 90+ million consoles sold in the same time Wii did, if ever.

[tomwaits]

I agree. I think the casual gamer market has moved on, and I doubt the Wii U will ever match the Wii's console sales rate. But, short-term shortages and the scalper market should ensure high demand through the holidays.

I was late on the first round of pre-orders and could only get a Basic. Walmart didn't start pre-orders until mid-October and I pre-ordered a Deluxe from them. If both come through, I'll be flipping the Basic... inadvertent scalper. :D

[Press_Start]

Good luck on finding one, sir.

I managed to pre-order the Deluxe set @ Gamestop five minutes before the cutoff. Yeesh! That was only two days after Nintendo's announcement and I'm sure demand exceedly grown thanks to their ad efforts and new playable kiosks. On top of that, Gamestop already has a waiting list for PowerUp Reward members, so maybe they have something similar at Best Buy and Target? All I know is after Black Friday, it's either wait in long lines or pay north of $500+ on Ebay. Like I said, good luck.

[Johnny Nintendo]

Unfortunately I waited too long and didn't get to preorder from Gamestop. They put me on a waiting list, but Walmart opened their preorders and I was able to get the deluxe. I actually just paid my remaining balance off today. Also, my local Walmart is doing a midnight release, so I'll be up there early.

[MachineGex]

Are you asking whether the Wii U will amass the same installed base as Wii? It's possible, but highly, highly unlikely. I'd feel comfortable betting my testicles that Wii U won't get to 90+ million consoles sold in the same time Wii did, if ever.

I was wondering if the shortages will be anything close to the Wii. It took several months for them to hit the store shelves without it being a fight for your life to get one. I guess I need to plan on hitting the lines early.

[RCM]

I was wondering if the shortages will be anything close to the Wii. It took several months for them to hit the store shelves without it being a fight for your life to get one. I guess I need to plan on hitting the lines early.

Nintendo can only hope they have that problem. I don't think shortages will be close to what happened with Wii.

[Bojay1997]

I was wondering if the shortages will be anything close to the Wii. It took several months for them to hit the store shelves without it being a fight for your life to get one. I guess I need to plan on hitting the lines early.

I think it's going to be hard to find for at least the first few months. After that, I think supply might be better than the Wii was, especially since I think demand will be lower and the price is higher which is more of a factor in this economy compared with the Wii launch window.

[Leo_A]

Anyone heard how we're supposed to store Wii downloads on this? Can we use the system's internal memory (And if so, will we be limited to the space the Wii's OS expects to see with the Wii's flash memory)? How about external hard drives, USB drives, and SD cards to store them?

I'm looking forward to hearing more about backwards compatibility in general soon. I have lots of questions like if we'll be able to re-enter Wii U mode for instance, if the Wii's original dashboard will be present, will existing Wii apps like the Internet Channel work (Not that I see using any of them, but I'm curious how far BC will go), etc.

Also hope we hear more about the Wii U's own Virtual Console that's in the works soon.

[Rob2600]

Anyone heard how we're supposed to store Wii downloads on this? Can we use the system's internal memory (And if so, will we be limited to the space the Wii's OS expects to see with the Wii's flash memory)? How about external hard drives, USB drives, and SD cards to store them?

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/11/14/key-details-on-wii-u-storage-solutions

By default (and barring an update that Nintendo says is coming in the future) Wii U will only allow one USB drive to be connected at a time. These drives cannot be disconnected while Wii U is powered on, and the system will support and read up to 2TB of storage.

Drives that will be used by Wii U must be formatted by the system's Data Management system, meaning you can't use the drive with a PC without partitioning. However all data can be moved internally and externally through Wii U's OS.

Wii U will accept SD cards, but their use is limited. PC, Wii Virtual Console, WiiWare and Wii saves can be stored on these cards, but Wii U save data cannot.

and

http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/news/a438282/wii-u-external-storage-backwards-compatibility-detailed.html

Users will be able to connect an external hard drive with up to 2 TB of space to the Wii U through one of the system's USB ports.

An SD card can also be used to store WiiWare games, Wii Virtual Console games, and Wii save data, but users will not be able to store Wii U games or Wii U save data on an SD card.

and

http://www.screwattack.com/news/wii-u-downloads-will-not-store-sd-cards

During an Q&A interview with Nintendo of Japan, details emerged about using external devices for storage purpose and while the translation could be off it detailed this.

1. Downloaded software can go to internal memory or external USB device. SD Card not supported
2. Your downloaded content cannot be transferred to another Wii U
3. You can move content to USB drive but not copy

The details are still sketchy but it looks like USB flash drives and USB external hard drives are the way to go.

Source: http://nintendoeverything.com/104950/nintendos-full-wii-u-qa-translated/

[Leo_A]

I know all about that. But it doesn't tell us what we will be allowed to use specifically for storing Wii Virtual Console and WiiWare downloads.

I remember when people thought Nintendo would allow user's to create virtual GameCube memory cards on the Wii's internal memory. I just have to imagine this is going to be limited in one way or another with WiiWare and VC downloads.

[The 1 2 P]

I have three preordered but that was on accident:oops: I will be picking up two of those on Sunday. The other one was canceled.