I'm proudly propping up the average ^_^

150GB/ month for me.

I am sure I would go over that quote in a week. I download a lot of stuff, and my PS3 is included in that number, with demos and games and stuff. You are right, companies need to think outside their bubble as not everyone has the luxury of unlimited data.

I'm not saying Nintendo are crazy for expecting people to download that much. The users who will download stuffs on the Wii U likely already download a heap more than the average anyways. The thing is the average "Wii" gamer is typically far from the bleeding edge but, one would expect, even they will eventually start downloading large volumes of data. It's also worth noting that that data was for June 2011, in June 2010 it was 10GB and in December 2011 it was 20GB.

My point was something along the lines of "How does this number keep growing so fast? This is crazy! looks at Wii U eShop thread Ohhh, I see"

eShop on Wii U is the great facility provided to the user. So now they can shop anything from the Wii online shop. Now you can get any item which you want for play and enjoy the real gaming directly at your house.

Well, honestly, I think the eShop should take some hints from Microsoft and Sony. All eShop titles should have demos; it's beneficial for the developer AND the consumer. Allow 3DS eShop titles to be played on the WiiU (without having to purchase the titles twice). There's a LOT of good titles the Wii's Virtual Consle missed, and Nintendo needs to notice that. The 3DS eShop has taken steps in the right direction, and maybe some of my suggestions are a little too much to hope for... but Nintendo has lagged behind in their online service for awhile. I would love to see them step up and push their service FURTHER than Microsoft and Sony. I realize that's asking a lot from a company that usually ignores their competitors and does their own thing, and their strategy has worked well for them... I just feel like Nintendo has finally started waking up to what gamers want and I don't want them to lose steam.

Yes demos is a good thing, there has been a few games that I bought thinking I would like them and if there demos of them I would have save money. Nintendo is getting better and with the Wii U hopefully they will be on par with what Sony and Microsoft offers in the demo department.

Proof for me that digital downloads suck. When I owned a 360 I just downloaded DLC for games I liked and never retail games. I really, really hope Nintendo don't get the blinkers on and just focus on this because it will put me off. The possible idea of an all digital future frankly scares me I want boxed retail games not a huge massive bill just to keep up.

I'd like DLC when beneficial to the game please, Downloadable Wii U games...not for me thanks. Downloadable Gamecube games would be the exception however. As much as I may really enjoy a game I may download, I don't really want to be stuck with it forever as I can't physically share it, trade it or sell it. For Wii U, Retail games could just ship with the box and disc leaving the manuals all digital to be displayed on the Wii U controller screen. Please Nintendo! Go digital when benificial not just to look "cool" otherwise what you are trying to do, by which I mean net the hardcore gamers...will backfire as you may well lose your bread and butter....the good old regulars.

This argument about not being able to trade in the games doesn't really make that much sense to me. I don't think I've ever traded in or sold a game gasp and if I did it would probably be with the system and everything. I still have my SNES and Gameboy... and I couldn't imagine selling them even though I rarely play them anymore.

So IMO being able to buy download the games, having it all in one place and not having to worry about disks is pretty much all positives. It's not like the DRM hurts as much as it does/did with music, I'm always going to play the games on that system. It's not like I'm going to want to play the next Mario on a Wii U in the second room or on the bus or something. The only downside is the lack of good boxart and manuals.... which haven't been happening for years anyways. If the price is the same I'll probably still get the box but if it's hard to find a hard copy or if it's marginally cheaper to download. Why not?

@mercury9

You didn't explain why doc au ks. You said you had proof but ni argument to back it ul.

Um....what?

I trade in games, but mainly because I don't want them sitting on my shelf unplayed. I don't actually care about the ability to trade in games. If I don't like a download game I just delete it. I don't feel like I need to "recoup my losses" when I buy CDs or movies I don't like, so why should games be any different? Okay, there's price, but that just means people should be more discerning about how they spend as with anything in life.

The better argument against exclusive downloading for me is if it's difficult to impossible for people who aren't in a primary target region to buy games. Being penalised by the chance factor of where you're born sucks and shouldn't be a valid reason to deny people access to games. It's the access issue that really drives piracy more than feelings of entitlement, I think.

I totally agree and I actually hadn't thought about it that way. That said I personally really like looking at my collection and I do the same with movies and music. I think there's something nice about having a shelf full of music you like or movies you've enjoyed even if they do collect dust once you've got digital copies. I guess games aren't any different.

Well I think that's a good argument against exclusive retail rather than exclusive downloading or maybe just an argument against being locked to any medium. I know here in Australia that in some regional areas, even reasonably populated ones, it's quite literally just as easy (and cheaper) to ship a less popular game from the UK than it is to buy it locally. If you live ~1000kms (oh yes, look at a map, I just insulted Texas' size) from the nearest store that stocks the game then downloading is probably going to be the easiest option. If you live in one of the places that far away from anywhere who are also getting the ability to buy high quota 100Mbps 'nets in the next few years then it's an even more obvious choice.

On a tangent, Australia has a very high rate of TV piracy..... but until very recently our media companies had a bad habit of being one or two seasons behind on pretty much every show. Does anyone think that's a coincidence? I'd argue that ease of access and lack of choice is the primary reason for piracy.

Here in Sweden thereis unlimited download data everywhere!

We've got unlimited here in the UK as well.
100GB a month isn't that much to me.
I almost downloaded 1TB in a month a couple of months ago.
Hurray for Ubuntu One, Downloading / Seeding Music (Legally) and Linux ISO's!

@TwilightPoint & @Link_Belmont
I was really making a "zomg Nintendo are crazy" point. In Aus we have quota but even then the low end non-mobile plans have quotas sitting at ~20GB/mo and most (all?) of them include free data. They don't count things ranging from iTunes, Steam and Windows updates to servers full of things like Linux ISOs.

The point was that despite the smallest plans sitting at 20GB/mo and with plans upto 1TB/mo and "unlimited" plans (which are a bit of a joke) the average user is sitting on 15GB/mo. I wouldn't be surprised if this is a fairly universal thing across all countries. Given that I think it's interesting that it doesn't seem crazy for us to say that a casual gamer might use an entire 2012's month worth of internets with one game in 2013. Basically what I'm trying to say is "don't mind me because I'm sitting in the corner here manically laughing at how awesome exponential growth is!"

Clearly you can get around region-coding on retail releases by simply going to the extreme of buying the console and games from another country, but if the downloads are restricted in some way, say by restricting purchase to credit card owners in the same country as the country of origin of the machine, then it becomes a bit tougher. In order to get a USA iTunes account for example I had to create a new email account, choose the address of a hotel somewhere as my fake address in the States and then get family in the States to buy an iTunes card for me and send me the code. Not impossible, but a hassle and if I didn't have relatives living in the States, a lot more difficult since places like Amazon won't ship US iTunes cards out of the country.

For my Japanese Wii I was just lucky that Wiis worldwide seem to take any credit card, so long as it originates in a country where the Wii is legally sold and in Japan, like the UK, you aren't asked for any address information when making your Wii points purchase via the shop. The Wii-U could quite easily do some kind of check on the registered address for the credit card like the Apple iTunes/App store does which would negate the easy way to purchase games - a large part of why I don't intend to buy an import Wii-U.

I just find it frustrating that sometimes you have to mess about with the system just to try to buy something legitimately that's not otherwise available in your region. I don't expect all games to be localised, but why stand in the way of my buying a game from another region?

I wish the rest of the world (yes, you too Microsoft and Apple) would follow Sony's lead: Make a new account, bingo, buy games from different regions.

I have four different PSN accounts on my PS3 - UK, Australia, Japan, US. All easy as anything to set up and thanks to the wonders of online shopping, easy to get credit for all four.

But then Sony itself doesn't like following Sony's lead. Vita is locked in to one region once you set it up.

Of course I expect Nintendo to region lock its Wii U. Which of course means, like the 3DS, I'm going to have to import a unit from Japan if I want to play games that are halfway interesting.

I'm not holding my breath for being able to download from different regions or even different countries with ease. I'm kinda expecting Nintendo to make it as impossible as they can and that doesn't worry me too much...... as long as the prices and release dates are reasonable. They probably won't be but I can dream I guess.

Even then it does make it easier to get games and makes more obscure games more visible. If you walk into a country Target, which could be the only seller of games for 100s of kms, you'll probably only see major games. The Mario Galaxy, Skyward Sword, Wii Play, Red Steel 2 etc. Unless you know that a game like Klonoa, Little King's Story, Gemoetry Wars, Henry Hatsworth is available you're not going to get it and even if you DO know you're probably not going to bother given the effort involved. If it's displayed and available right there from your couch then you're much, much more likely to buy it. Even if you live in suburbia there's a good chance you'll only see some of the more obscure games if you really hunt around or go somewhere like eBay for it.

That can only be a good thing for us as gamers and for Nintendo as sellers of games.

I may well just set my Wii U region to Japan and leave it there, because the 3DS support for niche games (JRPGs, strategy games) in Australia is just terrible. I don't know if a single JRPG has even made it down here yet.