Breaking News: Wii U Means Just U – Can’t Purchase Additional Controller

This could turn ugly in a hurry for Nintendo, unless the representatives are simply miss informed. There are now several reports from the E3 show floor that reps are saying you can only get a Wii U controller packaged with the Wii U system, and that additional controllers will not be available to purchase at retailers. This is taking the “U” a little to seriously in our book, and this can lead to a lot of issues.

Outside of the PR nightmare this creates for Nintendo in trying to explain how the heck gamers are suppose to play together in the same room if they both want to use the same controller, it also means players won’t be able to buy additional controllers if they break their own after the warranty is up. Let alone the shipping time that would take away from you being able to play the way you want even if it was a life time warranty.

This isn’t good news for gamers, and it can’t be good news for Nintendo on a day in which their stock values dropped a solid 5% after the Wii U announcement. Maybe this controller issue is the leading cause of the drop? Here is what the official reports are saying, based on numerous sources:

“Both the controller and the console will be sold as one unit. You won’t be able to buy the controller alone.”

I could see how the system wouldn’t support 4 of them, since we’re talking about streaming. However, you would think it would support at least 2, and you should still be able to buy them at retail. There are so many things wrong with this strategy that Nintendo may be shooting themselves in the foot if this is true. Of course, Nintendo is about to hear millions of people outcry over this, so they still have plenty of time to turn it around and change this strategy. This just became priority one for us tomorrow, as Alex will be searching for the best rep he can find to not only confirm or deny this, but to drill them a bit on why they thought this was a good idea. He has plenty of counter arguments to make to most of what they may say in reply. No worries, we’ll be all over this story folks.

Dear Nintendo, If you happen to be reading this post right now the please rectify for support of up to two controllers and make them available at retail. Even if this means the system has to be beefed up a tad to increase price to 350$, it’s better than releasing something with high hopes that immediately stops dual analog gaming the moment it comes out for more than one player. Yes, the classic controller is out there, but why would someone use that when the Wii U remote is superior? It makes no sense, and it gives anyone who plays split screen shooters and other games an extremely unfair advantage.

Source: CVG