I hope they add a spot for an ethernet cable, I had to buy one of those add ons for college, and ethernet cables have better connection to the internet than wireless.

I would think they would do what they did with the Wii.
Use an adapter, you would be able to use the same Wii Datel one.
But a dedicated Ethernet port would be awesome.

The only thing is that the adapters would break quite easily, and they weren't cheap

I know it's not the final design but in this photo you can clearly see:

• Power
• Analouge Video Out
• Sensor Bar Out
• HDMI
• USB x2
• A Vent

On the front there is apparently an SD Card slot and some more USB ports

........ no LAN

WAHAHA!!!! NO ETHERNET CABLE! YES! STINKS FOR YOU!
/Me squirts mustard on bread and laughs like fawful

Come on Nintendo not everyone has wireless.

really? never had a problem with the one we bought, it survived three moves and would probably still work now if we didn't have a wireless network (finally), lol. :3

I'm only marginally annoyed about this because I have SOOOOO many wireless devices I'm starting to become worried that if I add many more I'm going to get performance issues. Worst case scenario run a cable upto my TV (maybe over powerline), throw in a switch, grab the inevitable equivalent of this for the Wii U and plug in everything to the switch via LAN (Blu-Ray, TV, Wii U)

edit: if the adapter breaks I've still taken a few devices off the WiFises

I have never had a problem with the adapter breaking that said I do think Wii should have had Ethernet cable support from the get go. You can get an adapter pretty cheap around $10 on Amazon now but at the time I got mine it was like $30.

Edit: Just realized this is in the Wii U forum not Wii haha. Soooo If Nintendo didn't learn their lesson and they put out the Wii U with out cable support it will will just be another reason for me not to be interested in Wii U.

I bought a cheap adapter off eBay and it's worked fine for me.
If it ever broke I'd just get another.
The only problem is that it takes up a USB port, which only leaves one... But I only usually need one more (for my keyboard) anyway... And this isn't even a problem for the Wii U anyway considering it has more USB ports on the front.

Why is it another reason for you not to be interested? As you said, you've already got an adapter... which would still be compatible with the Wii U.
Unless it breaks, you'd be fine.

The God awful controller is the main reason I won't be getting Wii U.

Have you tried using it? And that's fine, if you don't like the controller then that justifies not wanting it... Still don't understand why the Ethernet support would be too much of a problem though if you already have an adapter. =P

If they are interchangeable then that is fine I guess but you would think in this day and age it would just be a no brainer to have it all ready built in.

Yeah, I do agree that it'd make sense for them to just put one in, and you never know because the Wii U is still a long way from being released.
In the end though, it's easy enough to get an adapter which solves the problems so there's more important things to worry about really.

With the vast majority of households who have internet access also having WiFi I don't think so. If it didn't have WiFi you'd be getting people complaining loudly, and rightly so. If it has WiFi there isn't much need for Ethernet "in this day and age".

It'd be nice if it was included but... I don't see much of a reason to complain that loudly. It's not as big a performance drain for gaming as people claim it is if your internet connection is at the other end. If it is a performance drain you probably have too many wireless devices.

Owned _{(sorry, but yeah...)}

Not true, the majority of house holds do not have WiFi routers. In recent years the saturation of internet usage and services spike at nearly 68% where broadband was only at around 60%. Only around 8 to 10% of these homes use WiFi routers. Most mobile devices that are used have cell connectivity over 3G or 4G. Also, WiFi can be slower.

@zranoll, don't most colleges have Wi-Fi these days? I mean in my humble opinion, Ethernet is a slight bit behind the times because Wi-Fi is far more prevalent in this time and place.

Also, if Ai's Campus doesn't have Wi-Fi then I plan on getting a Wireless Router to route the Ethernet cable into and then I can get online that way if it doesn't come with an Ethernet cable port in the final version.

WTF are you talking about? For any internet service bellow 50Mbps the performance impact of WiFi is negligible (DL/UL/ping) compared to even a top of the line wired network. With WiFi routers costing in the order of $80-150AU and most consumer electronic devices coming with WiFi as standard the vast majority of houses use it. I don't know of a single person with internet access who doesn't have a WiFi router.

But no! You seem to be talking about 3G and 4G! What? Unless your wireless 'nets are something else and your fixed line network is a mess you're not going to get better performance out of mobile networks compared to a fixed connection (even if it's ye-old ADSL) thrown over the last meter by WiFi. Infact the performance and cost difference is so great that most mobile users use WiFi wherever they can.

WiFi is so ubiquitous that they're starting to sell portable WiFi hotspots for mobile networks.