I am in hospital and have brought my wii u in. I have been playing mario bros for two weeks at home with a wireless connection (having done the initial update for the console) without problems.
I plug it in to the TV here and it turns on fine. However when ever I go to open the game (mario) it says waiting to update . Obviously this requires a wireless Internet connection which i dont have in the hospital but the game wont open unless i do the update. it juat tells me to turn it on and off and hope theres a connection. So what you cant play games offline if they need updating?!?! this seems obsurs to me .I've tried using another another user with no associated wireless connection set up. Still doesnt work. Any ideas? I am going crazy in this hospital bed

Try turning off spotpass. Maybe it's waiting to check in with Nintendo for spotpass details? Other than that, that is really odd. Also, maybe turn off Miiverse? You can do that in parental controls. I hope you get it figured out.

Either that or see if the hopspital has a WiFi connection you can use (not sure where ward you are in). A friend of mine had to stay over night for something one time and she brought in her laptop and the nurse gave her the Wifi info for patients to connect to the internet. Either that or maybe have someone take your Wii U home update it and bring it back.

Tasuki's ideas are good, I'd give those a try.

It seems silly if Nintendo isn't including updates on the disc anymore, I know they did that with Wii games, certain ones would come with on-disc updates that wouldn't allow you to play the game before you accepted the latest update.

Thanks guys. I tried everything you suggested but I can't get home to update. Nintendo told me that's what I needed to do. The girl on the phone seemed pretty unsure though. I think that's seriously screwed that you can't just play a console offline ...

Have you tried going to the Download Menu (Home Button)? Maybe it's already downloaded and you just need to install it.