Ah, to be a new console Guinea Pig...

Anywho, as you all know, Wii U was launched today in North America. And to celebrate the occasion, I had invited my friends to come on over and play some Wii U!

So I drove on over to GameStop, picked up my Deluxe Wii U (along with NintendoLand, New Super Mario Bros. U, ZombiU, Scribblenauts Unlimited, and Epic Mickey 2) and drove back home, eager to set the system up and await the good times ahead. So with the Wii U set up, I turned the system on. The LED light went from red to blue, and not just any blue, but blinking blue. And nothing happened on the television...

Puzzled, I went to my GamePad and turned it on as well, and it told me to turn on the console. Okay, back to the console. Maybe I didn't plug in the HDMI cable properly (kudos for including that though), so I tinkered around with all the cables. Switch HDMI cables, even went to the YPbPr cables from the original Wii. Nothing. Still a blank screen. And still that blinking blue light.

Flustered, I turned towards the interwebz for help. And it looks like I was not alone unfortunately. The "Blinking Blue Light of Death" turned out to be the system's way of letting me know it's defective. The BBLoD has struck folks, and I was one of the victims (yeah yeah, first world problems). So I called up GameStop, told them of my troubles... and luckily they had 2 extra Deluxe systems shipped to the store. So I hurriedly packed everything in (except for the sensor bar... whoops! ) and drove back to GameStop. Switched it out, drove back home, and once again set everything up.

I was a little more nervous this time as I reached for the power button. But success! The second try's the charm! My friends and I had a blast today, playing NintendoLand (Luigi's Ghost Mansion is brilliant), ZombiU (despite only being 1 vs. 1, the multiplayer is great fun), Scribblenauts, and New Super Mario Bros. U. Despite the console hiccup, I can't wait to play even more.

So for those of you who have bought the system and are waiting to open it (could be a Christmas present or something), I would recommend setting the console up and seeing if it's working properly. Luckily everything turned out fine for me, but better safe than sorry!

Blinking blue light? BS!!! It's sonic taking revenge for you buying a Nintendo system..

The spirit of Segata Sanshiro still haunts me to this day...

lol

congratulations  for you new wii U.

Blue, red and yellow lights of death

how fitting....

Once again this is the first I've heard of such issues. Bad luck to you and anyone else who suffered from the problem. Hopefully I won't suffer such a fate come the end of the month...

Did someone else have this problem here?

Did you waste a Gamestop warranty with that return? I didn't bother getting one through them.

I checked through the posts in my thread and I can't see any other mention. But checked online and it seems to affect very few (about 1 in 10,000?) so there's little need for concern, and Nintendo just go about and fix it for you anyway, so there's no real reason to worry. You just have to wait another week is all. Painful...

Still a shame, but teething problems will always occur with HW launches. 

First time he asked: No thank you.

After coming back: Heck yeah.