Wii U Family Hardware Bundles Revealed in Japan

No... not "Wii" series games!!! Give us G&W or NLand!

Damn, that's nice. I definitely think they should ship Wiimotes with them in the west.

Bundle 2 is a great deal.

These bundles are definitely worth their money. I really do hope that these boost Wii U sales in Japan ^^

I hope Wii U will sell during the holiday season. Right now the sales are the lowest I've seen :/ Which is understandable since the price drop is on it's way but it makes me sad nonetheless.

@LunaticPandora We already have Nintendo Land as a pack-in with the system, though.

I hope these attract more buyers the Wii U is an Amazing system with a ton to offer, it is by far the best system from Nintendo to date in my opinion the controller (Gamepad) is just Awesome ..

If only bundles were actually that price in the UK; £206 and £220 respectively.

Well...it's their holidays to lose, as the PS4 will not be coming to Japan in 2013. Their only competitor, amazingly enough, is none other than the 3DS.

Good deal, but Bundle 2 seems a bit silly, as you need a balance board already, and anyone that does would most likely not need a sensor bar or wiimote. Assuming they're doing the same "buy a Fit Meter, get Wii Fit U for free" thing in Japan, I don't see the need for Bundle 2 at all — might as well have done a completely different bundle from Bundle 1 to try to attract a different crowd.

Why not throw in some Wii games if they're gonna do bundles. Do do an old skool classics bundle...would also show the Wii u is new compared to the OLD Wii!

Anything to boost sales will help

my wiiu was bought december... 32gb with nintendo land for 350€ and guess what... the shop offered new super mario brothers u totally free. back there it was a nice price

With the holiday season rapidly approaching, bundles are the way to go.

"making a hard drive necessary right off the bat"

They keep saying Wii Fit needs a HDD but they wont tell us how big it is. NSMBU, Wit Party U and Wii Fit U (they should call this the U U bundle; so glad sports got called "Club") all being installed must mean it isn't too huge.

I don't think we'll see white Wii Us in the US for at least a few years until the Wii is a memory. Black Wii U w/ 32GB, only difference being the bundles, is the way to go until the Wii U is a household name rather than an unknown accessory for the Wii.

I think a balance board bundle would be too expensive, better to at least get board owners to buy a Wii U than nobody buy a $400 bundle.

I don't think the 30 day karaoke offer is going to make it outside of Japan.

30 days of karaoke? Sure, sign me up, Nintendo! I'd love to burn my neighbors's voices with my beautiful voice!

...Guess it's a good thing that feature probably won't make it outside of Japan. :B

i agree they need a core gamer bundle like a smash bros bundle or W101

@iphys Well, not everyone has 4 Wii mote pluses, so an extra wii mote plus is always welcomed.

Wii fit sold a lot of units and so this will appeal to those millions of people with a balance board already and Wii Fit U doen't need a balance board to be useful. The activity meter is enough to get use out of Wii Fit U.

The sensor bar is for new Wii U owners that dont have a wii or sold it. As the bundle says, 'Play Immediately Family Bundles'. You do not need to buy anything at all to get up and running once you buy the bundle.

Save your money Japan. There is a reason they are giving you so much for cheap. The system is outdated junk that no one is supporting. I know, I own one. Buy a PS4 or XboxOne!

Oh is that a white 32gb I see

@Bengals76
Wii U's not outdated yet. In fact, until PS4 and XBone are released, it's the best hardware you can get. Even when the competitors arrive, it will just be like the wii was against the PS3 and Xbox 360, only the wii U will be closer to its competitors than the wii was.

Damn, those are great bundles. With the PS4 and Xbone not coming out in Japan until 2014, this might give the Wii U the local edge it needs.

Awesome bundles.

@LunaticPandora Nintendoland is mediocre and Game & Wario is crap.

@LunaticPandora Totally Agree! I just played Game & Wario as well as Nintendoland. These are two good games that show off the many uses of the Gamepad.

@Mahe
Totally disagree about Nintendo Land. Just saying. I don't know your experience with it but it definitely helps to play with groups and especially with the same group as you advance further and further in. Still haven't cleared everything with my family but we all love the game. Zelda Battle Quest in particular is harder with more people.

@Mahe What, and Wii Fit/Party U are Nintendo's best efforts are they? Get real.

This reminds me of the NES Power Set systems that were sold with the Light Zapper, Power Pad, and a 3-in-1 game (Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt, World Class Track Meet).

Wii U Karaoke bundles...in Japan!? They'll sell like hotcakes!!

If this doesn't do the numbers in Japan this Christmas, especially with absolutely NO presence from the PlayStation 4, they will be buggered.

I'm actually hoping for a Wii U redesign next year, with a new look console (less like the Wii console) and a new and improved gamepad. Oh and bigger inbuilt storage.

@Bengals76
ITP: A handful of studios all of which are owned by EA or haven't made anything for a Nintendo console since the NES are "everyone."

I own one too. And a bunch of games for it. And more than half of those games are third party. Yep "no one" is supporting it.

Hmm.. Those bundles are nice in terms of content (although how do you play Wii Fit U without a balance board? That's another 9000 yen separate purchase.) The games are preinstalled so there will be some 10 gigs of space taken up by those. Very nice all in all!

I've always felt a Wiimote should have been included as standard seeing as most games use them.

Internal memory being maxed at 32GB isn't a problem.
By the time people realize they want more games in a digital format, it's basically guaranteed they'll understand they need an HDD to do that.

It would be like buying an smartphone(or basically anything), and figuring you want more SD card space, cases, a car charger, etc. items that enhance your experience with the device based on your preference.

This is a good deal.

Good to see the 8GB model and the differences in peripherals have been done away with.

The consumer should not have to make that decision when looking into a console.

AND KUDOS to putting a Wii Remote Plus in the box. This is CRUCIAL, Nintendo. Well done.

@Pod Absolutely. The Basic set and not having a Wiimote in the console package was (and continues to be) a big mistake for Wii U. Every Wii U package should come with a Wiimote and the sensor bar.

@LunaticPandora I haven't played them yet of course, but yes, I hope that Wii Party U and Wii Fit U will be quite enjoyable, and that they will provide a much-needed boost to the Wii U game selection.

@ToniK
Price drop took effect 4 days ago actually. Retailers have quietly lowered prices on the standard 32gb Deluxe model. I don't think real sales improvements will come until late 2014, although some medium term increases should be seen for 4th quarter 2013, with of course, a decline in January. But fall 2014 is when I think the system will catch longer-term momentum. It takes time for the games to resonate with consumers, and for word of mouth to spread that the games are must-have and the price is right.

This is of course speculation, but not without reason.

@aaronsullivan Neither me nor my friends enjoy Nintendoland. Its few good ideas quickly lost their novelty, and they are overnumbered by all the bad and boring games. Calling it "mediocre" is generous, when it was a pretty big disappointment really.

I think Nintendoland will sell better not included in the package. That was a mistake in my opinion. They should have released it with the new wii sports and sold that separately. These packages offer a lot of content, but I agree it doesn't promote people on the fence who think wii u just sells Mario games. I agree with the earlier comments that a partnership with Ubi could have paid off here. But I'm sure they'll sell fine either way.

@Mahe
I only have respect for you now because of your avatar. I kid.

What were the bad games, though?

The Yoshi game becomes genius in later levels, that's the one I was most resistant to at first. Even Pikmin which seems so silly/simple at the beginning gets fun and even challenging.

Metroid Blast and Zelda Battle Quest have some of the best teamwork cooperative gaming I've played in years and I'm still amazed at how fun the sword play can be. The Donkey Kong game gets devilishly intense requiring very real skills. The Balloon Trip game and the Ninja game are a bit old school straight forward playing, but they offer plenty of replay value and are old school difficult, too.

The dance game is obviously not going to be for everybody but I wouldn't call it bad. The Mario Chase, Luigi's Mansion, and Animal Crossing games are the one's that seemed to wear out the fastest, but every time we get a new group to play they love those the most. It's probably because the wide range of kid ages makes the competitive ones tough to enjoy. I even enjoy playing a couple rounds of the pachinko game every once in a while.

I guess we'll just have to disagree.

I find it hard to judge bundles like this as I'm such a sucker for Nintendo at day one. Still, these look good and though I was a bit skeptical on the Wind Waker HD bundle, it seems to have some good buzz going about it.

Very nice Bundles!!!! If I didn't have a Wii U already the I'd probably nab the 1st bundle in black

Yes! Bring on the white Wii U Premium Pack!

This sucks! I waited for a price cut on the 3DS and I lose over a $100 worth of games, ten of them never released on the Virtual Console. I buy the Wii U only a month after the release, and it gets a $50 price cut and no ambassador program. Now, they reveal that you could get a "WHITE" Wii U (which is what I wanted in the first place) in 32GB and with a bigger bundle, including a Wii Remote, Sensor Bar, NSMBU, WiiPartyU, WiiFitU, and the Wii Balance Board. Nintendo Land isn't worth all that...

This'll teach me. Next time a Nintendo console or handheld comes out, I'll let it have poor sales until I either see a price cut or ambassador's program. That's life for you...

I hate that Nintendo of America doesnt do this HERE!

I would have taken the launch a lot more seriously if it had bundles like this. I still think the lack of better storage is ridiculous, despite everybodys cries of "you can just get your own HD"; I get how it works. it's just disingenuous to be selling it as this complete thing that is supposedly all about downloading games but you still have spend another $50 and plug in some random crap drive to install anything like they encourage you too. It's like they designed it when they still didn't believe in anything online and never updated it; That alone still annoys me and feels like a bait and switch. give me ONE good pack in game and a 60-100gb drive built in, and maybe even a wii mote and I'd be all over it; And that should be at about $300 us, I would probably get one now with that kind of deal but I've been kind of turned off by it altogether already with the horrible launch and lack of solid 1st party games even now still. Mario is just not enough anymore with such a mixed target market.

I think it would be a good idea for Nintendo to have a Super Mario 3D World. That would be pretty cool!

Hopefully this works out. All #wiiu tags on Instagram show people with their new Zelda WW HD bundles. I'm interested to hear just how much of a boost Nintendo got from this bundle.

I paid $350 for only the Nintendo Land bundle, which I played only for two weeks and get bored... I paid another $40 for a Wiimote and nunchuck too...

@Bengals76 why are you here?

To italian guys on NintendoLife: here they're selling the WiiU 4gb at € 150.
Update your Wii now!
http://www.oasiipermercati.it/viewdoc.aspx?co_id=11&ap_id=538