wiiu - where to pre order?

80s Synth Pop

Smyths have the basic model (8 GB, no game, no pro pad) for 320 (on preorder). The premium pack #1 with 32 GB and nintendo land is going to be 380 but not on preorder yet as far as I can see. The premium pack #2 with 32 GB, Zombi U and pro controller is 420 but again not on preorder.

Are they good prices? Any other options?

oh yea best get on on topic since this is the retro forum..... Lets hope wii homebrew works so "devolution" lets you play retro gamecube games on it with the pro pad

Sparks43

Im going to be day 1 on this cant wait.

As for homebrew i can see it getting hacked quite quickly as with crossover support for moving the vc games over and also hdd and sd connectivity it only a matter of time that an exploit is found.

Steve X2

I pre-ordered the 32GB ZombiU Premium Pack from Amazon.co.uk.
£329, so about 405 Euro with free delivery.


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nintendo-32GB-ZombiU-Premium-Pack/dp/B00844QCQK/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1347804741&sr=8-6

CosmicSmash

That's not too bad of a price. It has the potential to be amazing and the news of Bayonetta 2 is to be exclusive has raised my interest. I really enjoyed the first game but when RE4 came out first that was meant to be exclusive to the gamecube as well. The 3ds was a bit of a grower for me, the Zelda remake was the turning point for me followed by Resident Evil Revelations and Mario Land 3D. I loved the raid mode in Revelations especially going for the S rank on the ghost ship.

kevin2me

Hey Guys,

I threw below on Nintendo Forum earlier, but A&R is my home forum
So better share here too, Man I cannot wait for Wii U.
Ya no big games yet, but they'll come, they always do.
If 720\PS4 is delayed till least 2014 then I reckon Wii U going to do great.
Theres only so much money DEV Teams have for AAA Titles and costs already sky high to make game in current gen.
Plus 2GB RAM on WiiiU should help see it thru next 2 years just fine before next-gen hits.

With USA Selling out all preorders I said better safe than sorry and Prebooked in HMV in Cork for 15e,
id rather gone with Gamestop but they wanted 50e with no info on price.
Good Price from HMV I reckon. They trying hard to replace GAME now as gap in market they were saying.

Ill miss Midnight launch as I doubt HMV will have one, which sucks especially as I was at Wii Midnight Launch in TimesSquare
and met Reggie and got 1 of the first 100 Wii's sold. Picked up PS3 on launch that weekend too
But I got tickets for EuroGamer Expo in london in 2 weeks so ill get some hands on with WiiU there, should be good craic.
Gamesom in Germany was great b4 Wii came out. Had private demos with Nintendo Ubisoft and Sega in 2006

Anyways for prices:
HMV:
300 Standard (I think)
350 Premium (NintendoLand)
380 Premium (ZombiU and Pro Controller)

I went with the ZombiU Bundle, Ill pick up Nintendoland separate. 380e, not bad compared to Symths,
Their prices were 319, 379,419, WHAT A JOKE like...
Thats 20,30, and 40e more per bundle, so more u spend, more they mark it up...

Heres quick pic of Symths prices

80s Synth Pop

Thanks for that info. HMV Grafton Street Dublin said yesterday they didn't know the final prices on the various packs but a €10 deposit would secure. Dublin are obviously not as knowledgeable as the Cork branch but HMV look to be the best "bricks and mortar" option.

Smyths on the other hand for sure are the ones to AVOID. God I remember having the 3DS on pre-order. They forced the person collecting it for me to get another €50 worth of junk with it (carry cases/shovel ware) on the the day. Game were worst for the Wii launch - forcing buyers to pick up a few shovel ware titles with the console.

HMV it is or Amazon

kevin2me - you seem to have the life of a game journalist!

the groutch

80s Synth Pop wrote: »

Game were worst for the Wii launch - forcing buyers to pick up a few shovel ware titles with the console.

I had same issue with Game with the 360 release, wanting me to spend €70 each on mediocre games to go with it. I argued with them that I only wanted the console until they finally caved.

Myrddin

Simple.

Rabble rabble rabble
No thanks.
Rabble rabble rabble
No thanks.
Rabble rabble rabble
No thanks.
Rabble rabble rabble
No thanks.

kevin2me

80s Synth Pop wrote: »

kevin2me - you seem to have the life of a game journalist!

haha I wish, More like professional at chancing my arm,
Few months before Wii Launch in 2006, went to Gamescom in Germany.

Its on every year its SAVAGE!!! Its europe's E3 but Better!
250,000 People, about 3000 VIPs for Trade\Press,
I went as Trade VIP so had access to all, so setup private meetings and demos,
Ubisoft for RavingRabbits and Assassins Creed, HalfLife2 Ep2 and StarWars Force Unleashed DEVs were cool.
Also met with SEGA for Super Monkey Ball, Sonic, and Nintendo for all launch games.
On The lAst day even got to hang out with Tony Hawk for a little bit

Wii wasnt even on Show floor but as VIP we got to have plenty behind scenes time with it.
Wii Sports and Red Steel at the Time blew me away. Came home with Suitcase for free stuff

Then few months later went over and queued for 12 hours for Wii and similar for PS3 in NYC,
met reggie and was Interviewed by a few TV Stations like SpikeTV about traveling over like a Mad geek for Wii at launch haha

Jack burton

Hmm, only places I have to choose from if I want a day 1 pick up of this is Smyths or gameslop

Might be forced to go with GS on this. Would anyone say there will be a repeat of the Wii with this? Could be worth out while keeping the box unopened and going to ebay 2 weeks before Christmas :P

a5y

I'd just like to say that I can't hear or read the name WiiU without thinking of the Doctor Who theme (about 0:16 here; its kinda like the first 2 syllables of the synth's "lyrics" for the want of the right word).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CYDgezeQas

80s Synth Pop

HMV Grafton Street finally had prices today:
Basic Pack: 280 (vs Smyths 320)
Premium Pack Zombi U w/ pro pad: 380 (vs Smyths 420).
Didn't ask about the NintendoLand premium pack

This seems like the best deal at the moment and they took just €10 to pre order. Time will tell if this has been a rip off..

Ol' Donie

80s Synth Pop wrote: »

HMV Grafton Street finally had prices today:
Basic Pack: 280 (vs Smyths 320)
Premium Pack Zombi U w/ pro pad: 380 (vs Smyths 420).
Didn't ask about the NintendoLand premium pack

This seems like the best deal at the moment and they took just €10 to pre order. Time will tell if this has been a rip off..

Wow, thats quite a significant difference. Reckon smyths (or more importantly gamestop) will bother their arses changing to compete with these prices?

Do hmv do midnight launches ever?

80s Synth Pop

there was a sign for midnight launch for the new fifa game.

Mr.Saturn

80s Synth Pop wrote: »

there was a sign for midnight launch for the new fifa game.

There's one to tell the grandkids.

Myrddin

80s Synth Pop wrote: »

there was a sign for midnight launch for the new fifa game.

Thats one queue you couldn't pay me to be in

o1s1n

Fifa games have a midnight launch?!

CiDeRmAn

I've decided that this early adopter lark is for mugs.
I'm going to do what I did with the Vectrex.
I got that in 2002 or so.
That's a good 20 years after it's launch.

So, I reckon, the Wii U will be an essential buy for my in 2032!

But look out!

In 2033 I'll be picking up the new efforts from both Sony and MS!

Hopefully the Wii U will have a decent software library by 2032....

They'll probably be still making DC Shumps!

Ol' Donie

o1s1n wrote: »

Fifa games have a midnight launch?!

Theres a poster for fifa midnight lauch in Gamestop in Tallaght too. Asked would they be doing it for wii u and the girl said they wont know until two or three weeks before release.

God, id be quite upset if they didn't after doing one for fifa. I'm struggling with the old faith in humanity as it is.

CosmicSmash

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

They'll probably be still making DC Shumps!

I"m still waiting for the delivery of Sturmwind, roll on 2032.

pdbhp

I thought Nintendo might have learned their lesson after trying to price the 3DS out of the market.
I would be an early adopter of this except it's now too expensive to warrant a purchase:(

Ol' Donie

o1s1n wrote: »

Fifa games have a midnight launch?!

I think im going mental, but did i just hear an ad on the radio saying 100 xtra vision shops are opening tonight for this?

DinoRex

Ol' Donie wrote: »

I think im going mental, but did i just hear an ad on the radio saying 100 xtra vision shops are opening tonight for this?

There are still 100 XtraVision shops?

kevin2me

FYI I was in HMV Cork During week and now have it official display stand with 380e.
Also Basic Wii U 289e. Thats best Ive seen and I think 350e for middle bundle.

Looking good so far. I put together a bit on my recent time with Wii U over on Nintendo Boards.
********************************************
I went over to Eurogamer Expo 2 weeks ago and spent two days playing the Wii U.
Wii U did absolutely not disappoint even with my high Expectations.

Star of the Show was between Rayman and NintendoLand.
Rayman was great fun assisting on the GamePad while someone else control rayman with ProController
And didn’t feel like ‘assisting’, actually felt like I had cooler of the 2 jobs to get us thru whole level.

NintendoLand had 5 demos, Zelda was so so for me, Ninja Stars was fun but nothing to write home about.
BUT Luigi’s Mansion was best craic ive had in multiplaying in a long time, both for wiimote and gamepad players,
Also a similar game where collect fruit and gamepad person controls two guys to chase ye down, that was equally as fun.
And then there was DonkeyKong, holy crap, its unforgiving but addictive as hell.

Also tried Pikmin 3, darksiders, tekken, Panarama, Trine and Mario bros, none stood out,
Mario just needs to be brought home didn’t suit the environment at Games Con, neither did ZombieU,
ZombiU Im most excited about but on show floor, had no sound, dark scenes made hard to hear zombies come up from behind and killu.
It will be good but looking forward to launch day to tell how good it will be.

And still theres Fifa 13, CoD, AC3 and such to come at launch. MiiVerse, TVii
And Nintendo so far have really given Zero 1st party Support in my opinion but that’s fine, that’s what 2013 is far, im fine with that.

Lastly The Best part of Wii U, THE GAMEPAD,
I might be Tendo Fanboy but Nintendo do cheap out somethings,
But not on the Pad, the screens is perfect, really bright, colors great,
Brilliant viewer angles and everything looked HD, Rayman, Mario etc all looked unreal.

Release day cant come soon enough

80s Synth Pop

picked up the zombiu pack for 380 and a couple of games for 57 each in hmv. Do the game prices seem steep?

80s Synth Pop

Keep your original Wii around - Wii mode on the WiiU forces the TV to 50 hz for all games. This is with the HDMI cable too.

CosmicSmash

80s Synth Pop wrote: »

picked up the zombiu pack for 380 and a couple of games for 57 each in hmv. Do the game prices seem steep?

I think if I'm correct a lot of Gamecube games when released first were 60 euro. The prices for new releases in HMV in normally quite good, Play and Zavii are 65.50 and 62.00 for mario bros u. I don't know but the last couple of 3ds mario bros games excluding the 3d one felt more than a little shallow for their price point, Nintendo seems to be getting fonder of the DLC options. I wonder will this mario title suffer the same fate.

djsim101

Well man, that's a lot of money for a console, how are U getting on with it? Are the launch games any good?

My last 2 launch day consoles (wii & ps3) failed so might hold of on this for a bit.

80s Synth Pop wrote: »

Keep your original Wii around - Wii mode on the WiiU forces the TV to 50 hz for all games. This is with the HDMI cable too.

80s Synth Pop

truth be told, it's a Christmas present for the young land

djsim101

Yeah, for the young lad, hmmmm....sure

80s Synth Pop wrote: »

truth be told, it's a Christmas present for the young land

CiDeRmAn

So, whats the best value in Wii U consoles now?
Is there any point in getting the 32gb console when you can expand the memory yourself later?

Myrddin

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

So, whats the best value in Wii U consoles now?
Is there any point in getting the 32gb console when you can expand the memory yourself later?

And so it begins. Paddy Power have good odds on Cidey having a Wii U come the end of January

Andrew76

EnterNow wrote: »

And so it begins. Paddy Power have good odds on Cidey having a Wii U come the end of January

He's like a Jekyll and Hyde character - one minute it's "I'll hold off getting one", the next it's "where can I get one". :pac:

DinoRex

I think I'll bring it along on Friday. He'll have no choice but to get one once he sees how fun it can be.

Steve X2

Well I'd heard stories but thought they were the usual bull$hit you always here about firmware updates. But, one of the guys in the office here got his Wii U yesterday and somehow managed to brick it doing the update.

Now I've not seen it yet but I hope it's just something that requires a reset. He'll bring it in tomorrow for me to look at.
They've got 105" plasmas all over the place in this new job so hopefully I'll get it up and running on one of them and be able to give it a good "test".

I'd zero issues with my update, anyone have any probs?

And again, parents, make sure to update that Wii U before Xmas morning(EnterNow, I'm looking at you). Imagine poor EnterNow Jnr running the firmware update Xmas morning and having it brick the console. He'd have to get the soldering iron out before his xmas brekkie.

Myrddin

Steve SI wrote: »

Imagine poor EnterNow Jnr running the firmware update Xmas morning and having it brick the console. He'd have to get the soldering iron out before his xmas brekkie.

Don't think I'll bother, the update is for online use so I'll prob do it the day after xmas day when all the servers have cooled down. Takes about 30mins or so at off peak times from reports on the net on an average connection

Steve X2

EnterNow wrote: »

Don't think I'll bother, the update is for online use so I'll prob do it the day after xmas day when all the servers have cooled down. Takes about 30mins or so at off peak times from reports on the net on an average connection

True,
Have you looked at it from a modders point of view yet?
Not a major mod but I think the gamepad and pro controller would benefit from some small lead weights myself.

Myrddin

Steve SI wrote: »

Have you looked at it from a modders point of view yet?

Nope, & admittedly my interest in modding current gen consoles is fairly low. If its a mod that gives real benefits like making it region free, or the old 60Hz switches etc then yeah I'm interested. Even stuff up to XBMC is worth doing. But the modern gen consoles arn't really worth bothering with, its all just piracy related really. Jtag/RGH in a cab aside, thats just cool!

Steve X2

EnterNow wrote: »

Nope, & admittedly my interest in modding current gen consoles is fairly low. If its a mod that gives real benefits like making it region free, or the old 60Hz switches etc then yeah I'm interested. Even stuff up to XBMC is worth doing. But the modern gen consoles arn't really worth bothering with, its all just piracy related really. Jtag/RGH in a cab aside, thats just cool!

I was thinking more along the lines of ripping the gamepad apart and using the screen/case for some retro goodness.

Myrddin

Steve SI wrote: »

I was thinking more along the lines of ripping the gamepad apart and using the screen/case for some retro goodness.

Yeah I suppose if I came across a broken one or something, you could do something like that, could be cool. But at half the price of the system itself, & while warranty is still intact for the next while, I doubt there'll be many floating about that get ripped open

CiDeRmAn

So, that best deal then, when you are all finished discussing what you'd do with a borked WiiU!

Steve X2

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

So, that best deal then, when you are all finished discussing what you'd do with a borked WiiU!

I got a bundle deal on pre-order from Amazon but got a fair bit of non bundle Wii U stuff as well so not sure how much the console was actually
Prices seem to be a lot higher on Amazon now than the were a week or so ago.

o1s1n

Do those WiiU pads link up via bluetooth?

I'd say you'll see people doing some interesting things with them and their PCs like we saw with the Wiimotes.

Myrddin

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

So, that best deal then, when you are all finished discussing what you'd do with a borked WiiU!

Well the preorder price for the ZombiU pack was €380, which HMV even honored when the price rose to €415 for the same pack. I think the ZombiU pack is a day one SKU only though?

I see the profiteering has begun on Adverts too, I wonder will they be permitted to break the rules or will the mods clamp down on it?

Steve X2

o1s1n wrote: »

Do those WiiU pads link up via bluetooth?

I'd say you'll see people doing some interesting things with them and their PCs like we saw with the Wiimotes.

I know it operates over some sort of custom wireless n protocol and maybe bluetooth as well (bluetooth for controls, wireless n for screen etc???).

ghostchant

Got the HMV 380e zombiu deal myself, along with mario and nintendoland. They were doing an offer where you got 5e off every purchase of 50e or more so split it in three to get another 15e off, decent enough deal I thought

CiDeRmAn

Thats what I thought.
I remember looking at the prices a couple of weeks ago and they seem to have risen by some 40 or 50 euro per pack since then.
There does seem to be plenty out there though, still in stock.
Might give it sometime after all, see what's what in the new year.
I have a birthday coming up in January, so I may send out signals for nothing but HMV vouchers, then use them all as a downpayment on a WiiU!

CiDeRmAn

Oh yeah, reported those knobs for profiteering on Adverts, makes me happy....