Nintendo Wii U Deluxe Set user reviews

Pros Touch screen on game pad is easy and intuitive. Super Mario Bros for Wii u in HD is beautiful. Nintendo Land disc is full of fun, easy to figure out party games. Full backwards compatibility with Wii games and hardware.

Cons Extremely slow load times for everything on the menu. Lots of downtime needed to update and maintain the console's OS. Streaming video services are particularly underwhelming

Summary My first day with the WiiU console I spent several hours downloading a system update that repeatedly timed out. After I downloaded the system update, I spent several more hours transferring my save data and downloaded games from my Wii to my Wii U. Then, when I tried to watch Netflix and Amazon Streaming, I was prompted to do MORE system update downloads. After completing all the downloads and updates, Netflix is essentially unuseable on the Wii U. When I tap the Netflix icon, it takes 40 seconds for the system to respond. In fact, it takes this long each time I do anything with the streaming services! To compare that, my little Roku takes 3 seconds to respond when I hit the Netflix button. Why on earth would I ever make the Wii U my main or only home entertainment device when it is that slow? If a cable box or TV took 40 seconds to change channels, I would consider it to be malfunctioning. Why does Nintendo believe its okay to have such poor performance on something as integral to the Wii U as the streaming services seem to be?

In general, the layout, design and performance of the console feels very half-baked, like it was rushed out the door with major, obvious design flaws. The menu on the gamepad looks like a windows desktop with way too many vague icons. You get the main icons in the middle, then you get a whole row of smaller, unlabeled icons along the bottom of the gamepad screen. The only way to know what a particular icon does is to poke it, but then you have at least a minute or more of load time before you get any response at all. I bought the Wii U to PLAY GAMES, not to be distracted by all the futzing around with the software and console. The games are fun, but Super Mario Bros is basically a continuation of SMB for Wii, with a little bit of extra functionality included due to having the gamepad. So the person with the gamepad can draw temporary jump platforms, but if you are playing with only two people, there really isn't a graceful way to bounce back and forth from the gamepad to the wii remote, so that feature isn't all that impressive.

Pros New controller gives the Wii U a unique experience
Ability to use touch based controls
Has some fun games and popular titles available
Nintendo TVii and Miiverse are actually quite useful

Cons Nintendo TVii would definitely be more useful if you could control your DVR.

Summary Deluxe Version is definitely worth the extra $50. It comes with 4 times the storage, a $60 game, and a 10% back for downloaded games.

Pros High Definition games
Excellent tablet with screen, fast and responsive
Tablet controller has own volume
Can turn off tv or change channel and still play some full games on tablet; amazing!
Netflix, Hulu Plus, etc. Will only get better

Cons Slow load times within the system features/apps (hopefully a patch comes soon enough), but not that big of a deal, just annoying at times.

Summary My Wii has been collecting dust for a couple of years now. Nintendo decided to release a new console and the Wii U is a hit! I love the 1080p HD, the tablet with a built in screen is excellent! It fits perfectly into your hand and the screen is clear and super responsive with the finger or stylus provided. They say the battery lasts a short 3.5 hours, but Nintendo gives you a big long cord to plug into the wall so you can charge while you play and it's not intrusive at all.
When you unbox and plug it in, there is an update that takes forever. When I say forever, I mean about 2 hours. That is a very long time, but I understand. There were some new features and additions to the UI and software, which I'll gladly wait patiently for. It's WiFi only out of the box and that's perfectly ok. The signal is decent strength in the living room, the Wii U showed full bars.
Ive had the joy of playing "Just Dance 4" and "ZombiU" and both games were great. You still use the Wii Motion Plus controls from the old Nintendo, but if you have just regular Wiimotes, then you need to either buy a discontinued adapter you can buy here on Amazon or Gamestop, or upgrade to a new Wii Motion Plus controller ($39.99). So far everyone who has played this Wii U has loved it and no reason not to at this point.
The only downside that I've noticed so far is the long load time between menu features (about 15-20 seconds). I'm sure Nintendo will patch and speed that up some. Other than that, I don't see anything to bicker about.
I recommend it.

Pros -Dual screen environment is unique and enjoyable
-The launch lineup is quite decent
-Social integration is good fun

Cons -Loading times
-Occasional freeze up

Summary Jeff, you're awesome and I watch the 404 all the time but i feel you are way off here. True this console has issues but the good far outweighs the bad. TVii isn't available at launch but this is a gaming console first and everything else second. Getting hung up on that really is focusing on the smaller picture. Besides, Netflix, youtube, hulu etc is all available as separate apps.
The games that I own run great and are a lot of fun. This would be a good purchase and is a very fair price compared to where the xbox 360 and ps3 were when they were first launched.