With the festive shopping season now gone, retailers begin the challenging task of making us all spend even more money, after so many splashed the cash at the end of 2013. GameStop has sounded the New Year retail desperation klaxon with its first run of promotions for 2014, while also declaring this to be the "Year of Gaming" in its press release; wasn't 2013 the year of gaming?
Of interest for those still lurching on the fence, however, is that there's a Wii U bundle going on discount in U.S. GameStop stores this weekend. The Skylanders SWAP Force bundle will be reduced from $299.99 to $249.99 from 3rd to 5th January; it includes the following.
- A white Wii U Basic (8GB) system
- A Skylanders SWAP Force starter pack that includes:
Skylanders SWAP Force Wii U software
A Portal of Power
Three Skylanders figures, including Ninja Stealth Elf (one of the Core Skylanders) and two SWAP Force characters: Blast-Zone and an exclusive color shift Washbuckler- A collector poster, trading cards and sticker sheets
- A Nintendo Land game disc
That's a tempting offer as it includes that Skylanders starter pack and Nintendo Land. Are any of you in the U.S. tempted to take the plunge this weekend at that new price?
Comments (28)
Future Shop in Canada has this at $199.99 for a New Years sale that ends today. It's sold out online but my local store still has some.
Fine deal right there. I'm glad to see WiiU's flying off at my store.
Not a bad idea but a bigger price cut would be great for me.
This is the bundle I got for CHRISTmas. Bought it on the 10th of December at 299.99 then the next day it went on sale at GameStop. The manager called me for a price reduction that next day otherwise I would've never known for 274.99! Then got an email from GameStop 2 days before CHRISTmas that it was going on sale again the day after CHRISTmas for 249.99. Took my reciept up there and got another 25$ back! Of course I used all that extra money to but more Nintendo stuff!
I got mine last week on the Toys R Us eBay store for $219. I was waiting for Mario Kart 8, but $219 was too good a deal to pass up. Plus the kids love Skylanders.
A good way to start the new year for Wii U.
So far I'm not seeing this whole Wii U being sold out everywhere thing in my area. My local Best Buy had a bunch of them sitting in plain sight when I was there yesterday.
I"d agree with everyone else 2013 was more like a year of gaming.
That'd not really a deal in my opinion. For 50 bucks more I will be getting a 32gb deluxe with Super Mario and Super Luigi. And the console looks way better in black.
Im sorry but there shouldn't be 8gb WII U anymore! 32gb is even way too low! That's why WII U will fail! People won't be that little of harddisk while other consoles over 10x! Nuff said.
@Alucard83 You can buy extra storage.
This bundle has been $249 at my GameStop since the day after Christmas, even advertised as such on the website. They also have original Nintendoland bundles for $249.
Im just wondering why the hell they didn't do this before christmas
@Alucard83 Hmm, let me see. PS4 with 500GB storage: $400. Wii U with 32GB storage plus the ability to pick a 1 to 2TB HDD of your choice: $380-$420. "Nuff said".
@Alucard83 I honestly don't understand why people complain about the storage space. My XBOX 360 came with only 4 GB and it cost me over $100 for a 320 GB hard drive for it. I bought a 1 TB hard drive for my Wii U for $59. I hate my Xbox 360 and in the short time I have had my Wii U I am in love.
I got a Wii U with 2 games with one being Skylanders Swap Force starter pack for $219. I don't care about the color and even if I got the 32 GB version I would still need more memory,
On sale at Best Buy in Canada for $199.99. Considering the 8GB non-bundle version was on sale at Target in Canada for $89.99 last week, this should be the NORMAL price for these 8GB systems.
@dmdsoftware $10 less than a Wii Mini? Are you insane?!
@mmarkster -
http://forum.canucks.com/topic/355112-wii-u-8gb-bundle-8999-target/
http://forums.redflagdeals.com/wii-u-basic-89-99-target-huge-ymmv-1430154/
http://www.cheapassgamer.com/topic/325335-the-wii-u-is-currently-8999-in-target-canada-only-ymmv/
In the summer, Target Canada and Costco Canada had the 8GB non-bundle for $149.99.
Hold out and maybe Best Buy and Walmart in Canada and USA may follow the lead one day and liquidate the 8GB systems.
@dmdsoftware I live in canada, I did not see that happen o_O
Also People, remember, you can actualy connect a USB drive to the Wii U and backup and store GAME Data on them. 8gb or 32gb doesn't matter. If you are willing to shell out 80$ for a 2TB Hdd, you will never need to worry about space again (2TB ... thats probably big enought to download all 2014 and 2015 wii U games comming out!)
Also remember that Nintendo specifically recommends AGAINST using USB flash memory:
"Because these devices have a limited number of rewrites and are not suited to long-term storage of important game data, we do not recommend the use of Flash/thumb drives as an external storage device solution. For best results, we recommend using a hard drive with its own power supply that connects to the Wii U via the USB port on the console."
http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/systems/wiiu/en_na/system_external_storage.jsp?menu=general_info&submenu=wup-external-usb-storage
@Royalblues True. And that's cool. Video Game Consoles are toys. Didn't you know? Check with Toys R Us. I got lots of toys. Wii, Wii U, 3DS, PSP and an XBOX360. Massive amount of toys. Never bored.
I grabbed this set yesterday on sale for $199. Really happy with it for that price, just gonna grab a dirt cheap 32gb USB stick for storage when needed. Actually prefer the white because it doesn't show fingerprints too badly. Great bundle, really happy with it.
@Alucard83 Oh yes, because the low storage space was the reason why Wii U sales were so low in 2013. Please, as many other people have mentioned, you can easily expand the Wii U's storage. Besides I'm more of a retail guy when it comes to games so storage space doesn't really matter to me.
Was considering this bundle as I saw this sale price online somewhere two weeks ago. Went with the mario bundle. My kid likes the s kylander demos in the store but with the figures being at least ten bucks a pop the game would end up costing over a hundred dollars. Love my new wii u by the way. Glad I stuck with it as my first one was defective.
In a time like this a 8gb system just sucks! The system WII U cost 320 euro here in Holland. A ps4 with 500gb 399 euro . Do the math. If WII U wants to be more succesful they have to offer a lot more. 32gb is also way too low, but much more apealing than 8gb if you ask me. I don't want to get an external harddisk. So i have to pay an other 50 euro? They can include that for the same price as they are asking. It's BS! lol.
I'm sorry im just honest about it. And WII U can't play blu ray. That's an other failure. Yes it's a gaming system, but we want it all in one . A lame excuse from nintendo. If ps4 can have the player and the xbox one for almost no difference in price so can WII U.
I don't know why people hate on the 8GB model. it doesn't have the space but if you're only buying retail games than 8GB is more than enough. even if you want to download games the storage isn't an issue because basically any USB memory device will do. you can use a 16gb flash drive which is under $10. I just use a 250gb usb drive for my 8gb and it works fine.
$249 and skylanders really isn't a bad deal at all. I'm not sure how much Nintendo's cost per system is but at launch it cost Nintendo $189 per unit. it may have went down a bit by now but probably not much.
thankfully Nintendo doesn't use proprietary memory like Sony.
We need some help. We bought the skylander wii u bundle pack for our kids for Christmas along with some extra remotes and the portal will not let us play two player. Every time we put two skylanders on the portal of power it pauses the game and says there are too many skylanders. Any advice? What are we doing wrong? We are using the game pad and wii remote.
@brucelebnd Correct, people who act like 32gb solves the storage problem are being unrealistic. Personally I'll be getting an external HDD. I mainly got this bundle because the price for what you get is fantastic and I think Wii U looks great in white, doesn't show the finger smudges as much.
Tap here to load 28 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...