I had just finished playing an hour of ZombiU and wanted to checkout Netflix. It updated and then was stuck on the netflix loading screen. I pressed the home button and pressed the button to close the software and now I'm on a white screen. I've tried pressing all the buttons on the game pad to nothing happens. I've even tried pressing the power button on the wii u itself and nothing happens. 

I'm terrified that removing the power cord might brick my system so I'm gonna wait an hour to see if it auto shuts off like it's suppose to. If it doesn't I'll pull the cord in a last ditch effort.

Hold the powerbutton down for a period of time for it to shut down, also if it has frozen the auto shut down won´t work

Just turn it off. If the system froze nothings going run

try holding power button on Wii U for 10 seconds

Ok pulled out the cord and it turned on fine but now I'm concerned with the fact that the console was only on for 4 hours only 1 of those hours I was actually playing a game and it already froze.

Shut off the circuit breaker to the entire house, unplug it, then turn the circuit breaker back on.

Let it cool for at least 5 hours, plug it in, and then turn it on.

You don't want to take any chances.

Wii U launch isn't going very well. Beyond the shortages, I keep hearing all kids of problems....

This always happens. At any console launch. It's because there'slots of peoples using it at the same time, so the probability that at least some consoles have problems is big. Plus the gamers that buy it day 1 are more internet vocal.

Nothing to worry about

Wii U launch issues are no different than any other launch console

It's not nearly as bad as what happened with the Vita upon launch.