Back in November 2012 we had a few debates in Nintendo Life HQ around the merits of the Basic (8GB) and Premium / Deluxe (32GB) Wii U models. With just 3GB of that white system's memory surviving a launch day update it seemed downright pointless to buy a system with such a small amount of space, as it made a hard drive mandatory. Of course, hindsight teaches us that anyone interested in the eShop or retail downloads won't get far with the 32GB system, either, so it's become a moot point.
Nintendo, however, has rather abandoned the basic model — pretty much to the point of discontinuation — in the West. Some retailers still have stock, however, and these humble little white boxes could provide some of the best value for prospective Wii U owners this Holiday season; just remember to grab a hard drive, too.
As this is the week when discounts provide plenty of shopping fun, we thought we'd highlight the bundles available on Amazon UK right now. Considering what's included in these bundles, the white Wii U systems are really being valued below a 3DS and offer a tempting entry point. With the Deluxe model's Nintendo Network Promotion — in which eShop purchases contribute points towards discount codes — closing at the end of the year, anyway, suddenly these seem like the best option in the UK right now. Check out the deals below.
- Basic Just Dance 2014 Pack — includes Just Dance 2014, Nintendo Land and a Wii Remote Plus — £159.99
- Basic Mario Kart Edition — includes Mario Kart 8, Super Mario 3D World, Wii Party U, Nintendo Land and a Wii Remote Plus — £199.99
- Basic Party Edition — includes Just Dance 2015, Sing Party with microphone, Wii Party U, Nintendo Land and a Wii Remote Plus — £179.99
- Basic Smash Bundle — includes Super Smash Bros. for Wii U — £189.99
There's also a less attractive Wii Party U bundle that oddly costs more than the better-value Basic Party edition, so that's one to avoid. Aside from that, these represent outstanding value considering the games available and the inclusion of a Wii Remote Plus — the Basic Mario Kart Edition seems like a standout.
Though these are UK deals, they perhaps point the way for shoppers in various territories in the coming week — leftover 8GB Wii U systems may be sold at fantastic prices as retailers look to shift stock.
Are you still on the Wii U fence and tempted to sniff out a Basic Bundle deal? Let us know.
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Comments 55
Wowser, especially the Mario Kart bundle
The Mario Kart and 3D World one is an amazing deal. I think the Smash one was done by Zavvi for £10 less a month or so ago?
I think Nintendo are still producing these too. It was pretty hard to find one of these back in June, but in the last few months there's tons of retailers discounting the white models. You're missing nothing by going with this system as mentioned in the article, if you don't download games, you won't mind the small HD, and if you DO download games, the 32GB system won't be enough anyway and you'll need an external HD.
Always preferred Nintendo hardware in white! My 3DS Lite, Wii, 3DS XL and Wii U all match
I'm on the lookout for one for my nephew for Christmas, I pointed my brother in the direction of a great deal a wee while ago for his son and he picked it up, one of these may just be ideal for my sister in law for her son. Afraid of missing something special on Black Friday though... Agh what to do! Thanks Nintendo Life.
These are great fantastic marvellous deals especially since not only as said above that even with 32Gb you need an external HD but also because the deluxe digital promotion, linked to the black 32GB model, ends end of December of this year anyway.
Just to make people aware, most of these seem to be available to pre-order, which is strange as everything in the various bundles, other than Smash, is already out. Odd, I'm holding fire just yet as I'd need to be sure it comes in time for Christmas
It actually appears that the Mario Kart bundle comes with New Super Mario Bros U rather than 3D world. Read the description and the product details.
The bundle at £200 is ridiculously good value. The 8gb isn't a sticking point either. It's just if white bothers you or not.
i have to say that the basic wii u probably isnt worth it unless u plan on buying an external hard drive or are only going to play games on disc. i have the deluxe one and its already half full(15gb used) and i dont even have that much downloaded
very tempting. Say I planned to buy all my games in disc format anyway (except the odd bit of Mario Kart DLC and maybe a VC game or two), would 8GB be enough? I really don't want the inconvenience of a separate HDD
If I didn't have a deluxe model already I would jump at the mario kart bundle. I wonder if these bundles are looking a deal that nintendo has been striking with retailers to boost console sales.
@Incognito_D The 8GB would be too small if you plan to get the MK8 DLCs and similar stuff. You only have something like 4 GB free. Game updates (I'd expect the Smash U update to be quite large), system updates, the MK8 DLCs would pretty soon occupy that.
@Incognito_D The start is 8gb but once you set it up it downloads an update that leaves you with between 2-3gb. So at some point you'll be wanting external HDD of some kind as it wouldn't be enough to save everything after a while and certainly not enough to download patches/DLC or full games.
I personally think these are amazing deals. If I didn't have other plans I would be jumping at these. I prefer White hardware and the 8gb isn't a problem for me as I have a few spare HDD's lying around.
Similar deals can be had here in the Netherlands. And i'm pretty sure you can get even more of a discount if you pick up some extra games. Good times
There is no need for a hard drive, a 64gb usb drive would do forever if you mainly buy physical copies of games.
The only reason I went for the 32 GB version was for the Digital Deluxe Promotion. With that ending in a month I'd be tempted to buy a 8 GB if I needed another Wii U. The price of a good HD isn't that much anyway.
Mario Kart bundle seems like a steal. Add in Smash Bros and you have you need for a good holiday of gaming!
I went for the 32GB because of the space, accescories and the Digital Deluxe Promotion. I have got 3 £5 vouchers from that as of now. If I didn't have a Wii U I would be interested by this deal, but I do so... yeah.
People scoff at the Basic version....but there is nothing wrong with it!! I bought it cheap, and it works fine. Sure 8 gb is nothing, but 32 gb still is nothing! Especially since downloads are big, and there are many updates who take up space. Even if you never download a game, you may still need to buy a hard-disc for all the updates. As for the promotion Dark-Chespin mentioned, in the long run it doesn't save you much (unless you are a massive downloader). Well, not for me anyway. So I just bought the 8 gb model!
Bottomline: Go for the cheapest option, the option that works best for you!
Are these PAL Wii U bundles? If the answer is yes, I might get this one. I need Smash!
@jariw @FemmeFox thanks for the feedback peeps!
NOTICED JUST NOW THE MARIO KART EDITION
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT
mario kart bundle is great value.
I've got the white Wii U and a white external HD to match. I really like it!
I just paid £50 more for the Mario Kart bundle from Argos last week. C'est la vie.
@sevex Me too! The color of Wii U will always be white to me.
Good! Away with 8GB! We want 320GB bundle on the next hardware! Nuff said
The whole idea of lauching with two different SKUs is quite possibly the one thing that hurt the Wii U the most.
And you'd think Nintendo would have learned from the hardships both Sony and Microsoft face last generation because of the exact same approach. They both did away with the approach, and are doing much better this generation.
The consumer does not want to have to make this choice. Particularly young men, who do not want to feel like they aren't getting the best, but still want a fair price.
What quickly happened was that the premium bundles sold out, and basic units rotted on shelves. Do to generally low demand, most department stores opted out of restocking premium bundles, believing it was the Wii U in general that did poorly, and eventually stopped carrying the system altogether.
Poor proposition of choice for the players, poorly informed store personnel. When you add poor advertisement and poor reaction times on Nintendo's behalf, the multiple SKUs was a recipe for a disastrous launch.
@AlexSora89 Of course they are, Amazon UK! Bear in mind it comes with a 3pin UK plug, though.
@sevex Nice! Got a link for what HDD you're using?
Also, how much space does firmware updates and saves take up on your internal HDD?
Are the white Wii U's still in production?
@Nicolai How's the white GamePad? kinda curious.
@Nicolai How's the white GamePad? kinda curious.
@Tritonus 8GB means around 3GB left for games and game updates/DLC
32GB means around 26/27GB to use for games
HDD doesn't matter which one you get as long as it got its own power adapter and works with PC and Mac. I got a Western Digital 1TB and it works fine.
8GB white Wii U's are being phased out. (though they might make white 32GB models like in Japan)
@AyeHaley I got the 32gb black with a 500gb external HDD, so yeah I know most of that, but was just curious if the 8gb presents any problems at all for basic stuff like software updates... I guess nintendo had this figured out, but I'd say it's hard for even them to predict the future.
Yawn. I've nearly filled up my Wii-U Deluxe, with about 2Gb left. I know they recommend not to, but I plan on cramming a high performance 128Gb flash drive up the Wii-U's butt when they become affordable. After all, the Wii-U uses flash, right?
@StarDust4Ever But it will do via USB 2.0, which will limit your performance gain. There's really no advantage over a regular HDD because of the USB 2.0, as far as I've been able to research.
@Pod I totally agree. I went with the basic because I already had an external hard drive and knew I'd be buying too much software for the expense of the deluxe to be justified. Having said that the split probably didn't help less tech-savvy consumers who don't necessarily know much about the units of measurement involved in digital storage.
Given the sizes of the discs for the system even the deluxe won't last you long depending on what games you end up downloading. It's not a simple decision, but they are coming in at a lower price point than their competitors. I would have paid for the deluxe model if that was the only option because I was committed to the platform, but they obviously hoped more people would take the upgrade option at the lower price point.
And I saw these bundles, but given the "pre-order" status and conflicting descriptions I don't trust that these are legit entries, but rather a placeholder for something they thought they would offer if they got stock. Amazon is pretty bad with that stuff like being able to pre-order things with "stub" (incomplete) catalogue entries that end up getting replaced with proper entries down the line.
Personally I would only place an order for something that's listed as "in stock" lest you miss out. That's why I'm steering my partner toward the bundle with the remote, Wii Party U and Nintendo Land and a hard drive, because I remember that was a bundle that was widely available before and I can just buy the download of Mario Kart 8 and the DLC without worrying about space.
@Tritonus non-sequential writes seem to take a bit hit with flash, but random read access is faster. The peak bandwidth of USB 2.0 is fixed, but buying a 3.0 drive is safer because it will meet or exceed USB 2.0 performance in nearly all cases, unless you're writing a million 4kb files, which is a pathetic benchmark.
Wii-U uses a proprietary file system, which likely matches the block writing style of it's own internal flash.
Once a game file is saved to external storage, it stays put and does not change much. Game saves are written multiple times but seeing as there's no constant write-caching like a windows PC, there is very little reason to assume that flash memory will wear out faster when used on a game console. Constant spinning up and down will wear a hard drive much faster.
Either way my Wii-U deluxe is on the verge of being full but I plan on getting a 128Gb drive when prices drop a bit more. And Sandisk or some other name brand will be better for it if a bit more expensive.
A good bargain, even with a black model you'll quickly need a HDD anyway
Shame Nintendo isn't continuing with the promotion as it did offset the high prices a little - digital versions are much more expensive than buying physically (nice way of Nintendo to rip off digital customers).
I wonder how many other people are using a non-powered HDD? Although not recommended I've been using a 1.8" USB-powered drive since WiiU launch and not had any problems at all.
This is how much the 32GB version should cost with any of those deals imo.
I like what you're getting in this deal though: Basic Mario Kart Edition — includes Mario Kart 8, Super Mario 3D World, Wii Party U, Nintendo Land and a Wii Remote Plus — £199.99
If that were the 32GB model I'd say that was a genuinely great deal.
If I had £200-£300 spare I would completely go for that Mario Kart bundle. All you'd have to do is top it up with Smash', probably an external somewhere down the line, and you're all set. As is, lack of money x Christmas + ORAS, Smash 3DS and loads of unplayed Vita titles = an unfortunate no on that front. Maybe next year
I thought 8.GB ones were gone from the market in 2013.
They are as usable thou with a external HD connected.
@Ventilator
Yeah I bought the 8GB at launch because I wanted a white console and I found a white Seagate 2TB external HD for $70 that matches it perfectly.
@Tritonus This is the hard drive I have:
https://www.toshiba.ca/productdetailpage.aspx?id=2147497155
I bought a cheap usb y-cable from Amazon and have had no problems whatsoever so far.
I'm not actually sure how full my internal storage is though. By default there was 3GB free, and last time I checked it was about the same, so it's probably fine for updates and some saves.
yeah the premium edition was only worth it for the steady stream of €5 eshop codes.
i foolishly bought a 2TB HD, expecting to fill it up with games over the years, just like my 2TB Steam games drive, but it looks like a cheap 250GB disk would have sufficed.
it's the last time i buy a console at launch: the amount of gaming time i've got out of it hasn't been worth the money i've spent, not compared to the Wii or the DS.
@Tritonus Great! No fingerprints ever, and I even put stickers on them from the E3 Best Buy event, since they have a white border. So, I got a couple fire flowers and a boo that's hiding its face.
The mario kart bundle says 'currently unavailable'. It sold out that fast?!? That's crazy.
@Nicolai Sounds great.
@Nintendolife, thank you for realizing the quote I copied below. I bought the 8gb system on launch day because it doesn't matter which you buy, you are going to need an external harddrive..... so I spent that extra 50$ on a 1.5tb drive. So my Wii U is the 1,500gb model I purchased for the same price as the Wii U 32gb model........ Now if only the internet trolls would stop ripping on the 8gb Wii U, its completely uncalled for. Besides I prefer to download everything so I don't have to hear the annoying disc drive all the time.
____________________________
"With just 3GB of that white system's memory surviving a launch day update it seemed downright pointless to buy a system with such a small amount of space, as it made a hard drive mandatory. Of course, hindsight teaches us that anyone interested in the eShop or retail downloads won't get far with the 32GB system, either, so it's become a moot point."
@Tritonus No, the 8gb model doesn't have any issues with updates, etc.... we get the same awesome stability updates as the 32gb systems do.
Off topic slightly, but still ~Wii U related. To the wonderful ladies and gentleman at NL, is there anyway to get opinions to the guys at Nintendo that REALLY matter, and that could make a CHANGE? Firstly, the PR team for Europe (GB at least) are doing nothing what-so-ever. Why oh why has there not been mass advertising for Smash for the Wii U in the past few weeks? I have not seen one advert. However, I have seen countless ads for both the Xbox1 and PS4.
Seriously, they need to market the console and games aggressively, especially at this time of year. They should be letting people know that it is HD, has amazing exclusive games you simply cannot get anywhere else, it is backwards compatible and has a large VC collection, and also an amazing e-shop lineup. Is it because Nintendo does not consider the UK to be important enough to actually promote their console and games? I remember Mr Iwata saying before MK 8 was released, that there would be TV adverts before and for a long time after its release.
They are sitting on an absolute fortune, which is just earning them interest in the bank. They need to start spending some of their wealth if they want people to know more about the Wii U and its games lineup. There are still many many people out there that think the Game Pad is an add-on for the original Wii!!!!! Two years after its release, this should not be the case, and I seriously wonder at times, if Iwata should move aside, and make room for a younger person, who is more in touch with what gamers want, and how to get their message(s) to the masses.
I ordered one of these Mario Kart bundles, but today it was cancelled by Amazon as they said they can no longer source them Got given a small gift voucher by way of apology
@imightbewrong
How long ago did you place your order? I made a pre-order for the MK 8 bundle on the 29th Nov, my delivery date has been put back to the 12th Dec when it was originally supposed to be the 5th... got a feeling Amazon are gonna let me down..
@WayneLFC74
Ordered on 30th. On 4th delivery date pushed back to 12th. On 5th order cancelled.
Good luck
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