Before I get started, please turn to the Wii U Info and Discussion Thread and then come back here when you are getting ready to buy the Wii U, because I have some must have information on the Wii U before you buy it, and before and after setting it up. After that go to the Official Wii U ID Exchangeto go crazy and all of your fellow Gamespotters who own their own Wii U!
Also...
*I plan on making this a topic on the Wii U forums on here but first I want to get premission from the moderators, so please dont steal my idea*
*This topic is not intended to replace the Wii U Info and Discussion Threador the Official Wii U ID Exchange. Nor is it an extension of either of those two topics.*
*mods (if you give me permission to make this a topic on the Wii U forum, please sticky it*
*Game discussion, hype, news, hate, etc as well as off-topic discussion also should be avoided in this topic*
What you need to know before and after getting the Wii U
Before buying either verson of the console
So, you've decided that the Wii U interest you, and or you believe your family, friends, and or co-workers would really love to make the Wii U part of their gaming hobby. Here is what you need to know Before and after buying.
***SPOILER***
- The Wii U is the Next Generation Nintendo Console, the successor to the best selling console of last gen, the Wii
- There are two sku's of the Wii U; White and Black
- The White Wii U is the least expensive of the two, costing only $299.99. While the Black, Deluxe, Wii U cost $349.99. Please note that the prices I listed are the suggested prices from Nintendo, retailors are allowed, though arent likely, to set the price above or below the suggested price
- Why does the Black verson cost more? Besides extra memory, it looks far better than the White Wii U and it comes with more stuff, such as; Wii U gamepad charging cradle, Wii U gamepad stand, Wii U console stand, a game (Nintendo Land In America), and a digital promotion program. Which I will discuss a bit later on this post. A whats in the box can be found here and a side by side console comparison (Basic Wii U and Deluxe Wii U)
- Both sku's of the Wii U come with a gray HDMI cable, and they aren't specially designed either so you can use the cable for other devices too. They do not, however, come with a component or av cable even though both sku's have a port for them.
- If you prefer av or component cables over HDMI or if your tv does not support HDMI cables, you can use your Wii's av or component cable.
- Both sku's of the Wii U support Wii games and controllers. So please dont throw away your Wii controllers or games if you are going to buy the Wii U/ already have it
Where can I find the console and how much will it cost?
***SPOILER***
- For physical retail stores, click here and then choose the Nintendo that covers your region and their website will probably have a page listing what retailors sell the Wii U. The price should around the suggested retail price that Nintendo has given the Wii U for your country/ contenent
- For Online stores; The online verson of the stores (if they have an online versoon of their store), Amazon, Ebay,.... (I dont shop online, so please help me out by telling me what other online stores sell either verson of the Wii U). Again the price should be the same if not around the suggested price for the console in your area
Word of caution before you buy
- As of the date of this post, the Wii U gamepad (the controller with the touch screen) is not sold seperately. So if you do buy the Wii U, handle with atleast some care and watch your children when they play the Wii U with it and make sure they understand that if they dont handle the controller with care, bad things will happen.
- If you want to take extra care, buy a screen protector and maybe even a skin/ armor. Doing this will not only help protect your gamepad from breaking, should it be dropped or sat on, but it will also protect the controller from finger prints and scratches
- If buying used, make sure you are buying from a reliable store/ reseller such as Gamestop or the equivalent to Gamestop in your location and if possible, have the store/ reseller comfirm to you in one way or another that the Wii U you are about to buy works 100% the way it is supposed to.
- If you ordered your Wii U online, keep a close eye on its delivery status. The have been reports from the previous console launches of shipments never making it to you because whoever was dilivering it to you stole it.
- To add to ordering online, if you buy from reseller/ auctioning sites such as Ebay, be wary of very inflated prices and of fake/ broken Wii Us. If the price is below the suggested retail price, be wary that what you see might be broken in some way or is a fake. If the price is way above the suggested price and is indeed real and not broken or fake in anyway, it is not worth the purchase if you have to spend $200 or more above the original retail price.
- Also something else that I pray you already know, the Wii U gamepad and Wii U pro controller will not work in anyway with the Original Wii, the slimmer/ no gamecube bc Wii, and Mini Wii (currently only for Canada)
- Also, No verson of the Wii is capible or compatible with Wii U games or accessories
Setting up your Wii U
Great! So now that you have bought the Wii U and hopefully unboxed it, here is what you need to do to set it up
***SPOILER***
- Hook the HDMI cable to the Wii U and tv, plug in the Wii U's power adapter, plug in your Wii U gamepad power adapter to the charging cradle (if you got the deluxe Wii U) if you wish to charge your gamepad after it dies
- the power adaptor comes with both basic and deluxe Wii Us, and you can hook the power adaptor straight to the controller if you dont want to use the charging cradle
- No need to wait to get started, the Wii U gamepad is pre-charged so you can get right to it with setting up and playing your Wii U
- As of this post all brand new, never used before, Wii U will require a day one firmware update. Dont worry, you dont need the update to play Wii U games or Wii games, but you will need it if you wish to download games, play online, make use of 3rd party applications such as Netflix or youtube, browse the web, use Nintendo TVii (coming to Japan at launch on Dec 8th, America sometime in december or next year depending what websites you use to get your gaming news, and Europe next year), and Miiverse as well as set up your Nintendo Network ID
- Touching on Nintendo IDs, they are currently locked to the console of which you make your account on. So if your Wii U bricks, breaks, or if you return your Wii U and then eventually buy another, you will have to make a new ID. Although, if your console bricks/ breaks, you can send it in to Nintendo for repair or to get a new Wii U and they will transfer your account and all of your account information for you
Day one patch, please read this atleast
***SPOILER***
Something to be critically aware of when updating your Wii U with the day one patch or any patch/ firmware update. If you have a slow internet connection, the day one update could take more than a single hour, some have reported that it took their console 5 hours to update, but that could have been because of slow connection, limited bandwidth, and or Nintendo survers being over ran by user traffic. Please, DO NOT TURN OFF YOUR CONSOLE, not even if the update takes all day. More than likely the update will finish installing. If you do turn off your console, please expect it to brick.
Here is how you can avoid painfully long firmware updates/ bricking when updating if turning off console. When the Wii U informs you that there is an update available, just press no (I forget what exactly the 'update later' button says. But basicly by choosing the dont update now/ update later option, your Wii U will allow you to go ahead and play your games and the update will install later/ in the back ground.
Playing the Wii U and using its OS. What you need to know:
***SPOILER***
- The OS is more so than not, kinda a slow. No it isnt just you or your Wii U, it is every body.
- Dont worry though, Nintendo is aware of the OS slowness and are working on speeding it up
- Parental Controls: Parents, you can control how your children communicate and interact with the online community (including Nintendo's social network Miiverse), as well as control what games they play and can download (I think) and control what they can view on the internet browser
- Nintendo TVii currently is not available (the icon is there, it looks like a tv) and wont be until sometime in December/ next year depending upon where you live. Unless you live in Japan in which you will be able to use Nintendo TVii as soon as the day one patch finishes. If you wish to know more about Nintendo TVii, go here (Wii U Info and Discussion Thread or Nintendo's website)
- Miiverse: It is part Nintendo's new online service/part of the Nintendo Network. Its kinda like twitter/ facebook just without people complaining about life and posting inappropriate images. Its amazing and you should give it a try. If you are worried about seeing inappropriate content or illrelivent content, dont fear since Miiverse is heavily, possibly even strickly moderated.
- If you see a post that is offensive, explisit, and or illrelivent to the game community that you are looking at, you can report that post as a violation to the "administrators"
- For more about Miiverse, go here or here
- The Internet Broswer, its not the best broswer in the world. But it is the best available for consoles and it can do so many things. All you really need to know is that it is very fast, it works with html5 (youtube works!), and it is easy to use.
- Flash player doesnt work though, but with most websites turning away from using flash player, this shouldn't be a problem.
- For more info regarding the internet browser, go here
- The eshop; Its Nintendo's new online store, that of which has been on the 3DS almost since the 3DS launched. But the Wii U and 3DS's eshops are different from each other (for now). For more on the Eshop, click here
What about memory expansion?
***SPOILER***
- Since buying a Wii U, basic or deluxe, does not give you a huge internal or external hard dirve, it is reccomended that if you plan on using the Nintendo Eshop, to buy yourself some sort of external device to extend your consoles memory
- The Wii U is compatible with most external hard drives and memory devices. (The Wii U has usb 2.0 ports)
- There seems to be no limit to the memory size of the hard drive. It can be 100GB, 350GB, 600GB, or even something crazy like 1 or 2TB
- Nintendo Recommends external hard drives that are usb 2.0 and that have their own power adapter rather than drawing power from the console to opperate. If the hard drive you plan on using requires power from the console, Nintendo then reccomends using a twin usb cable (the end with one usb plug goes into the hard drive and the one with two usb plugs goes into the console
- Nintendo says that external hard drives that use usb 3.0 should still be able to work with the Wii U since usb 3.0 is bc with usb 2.0. But, they cannot, however, ganruntee that the hard drive will function properly.
- Flash drives will also work, but Nintendo reccomends against using that form of external memory
- SD cards will not work, however. The SD card slot on the front of the Wii U is currently only there for the Wii U's "Wii Mode"
- Wii U supports up to 32gigs of SD
- Warning regarding external memory
- The Wii U will format the entire memory device, and delete any and all content saved on the hard drive before using it with the Wii U
- It would be nice if someone could comfirm this, but it is also said that once the Wii U formats the hard drive, it can not be used on another console or PC without being reformated again, deleting all Wii U related content on it
You might wonder why in the world would you need to expand your memory? Because most if not all downloadable versons of retail games are very large. Taking up only a few gigs to something as large as Tekkin which takes up 17 gigs. If you bought the basic Wii U, dont even think about downloading retail games games without first getting yourself atleast 100 gigs of external hdd.
