A second hand 500gb hdd costs next to zero, shouldnt be a big deal.....the key word is should

Well.

Nintendo why you make so many bad decisions.

Wonderful

Keeping digital copies of titles in the limited space of the console harddrive has always been a problem that was lessened for Xbox and PS3 gamers once the new models with bigger HDD came about. Seems the WiiU owners have a problem in this regard.

Maybe in the future revised versions of WiiU models with bigger storage will come forth and will allow to keep more games at the same time in the console's HDD.

The obvious sacrifice here was that Nintendo didn't want to lose form factor by having to cram an HDD in there, part of their drive to keep consoles as small and unobtrusive as possible.

Options are super-cheap, though. Nintendo should sell some, too.

"Basic 8GB Wii U consoles have just 3GB free space after installing system software and creating a user profile, Nintendo revealed last year."

Holy cats.

It isn't really much of a problem with externals since you can get it for a decent price, but still inconvenient though. It wouldn't have killed Nintendo to include a bigger hdd.

they just released the system and already games are requiring you to change the hard drive. it was obvious from day one that this will be in issue yet nintendo decided to go with the extremely low memory choices. so much for nintendo going all out on the digital and online space like they claim they are doing

Yeh I'm the biggest Nintendo fan ever but this kinda sucks hey?! Who wants to have an external hard drive also sitting in the living room. I thought Nintendo was all about one neat box family type consoles that sit neatly in the living room. Not some over sized messing setup.

Seriously if they just released the Wii U at the end of this year they could have added a little more power to it for the same cost as it was last year and could have released it with more than 2 games?!?!?! Was it really worth releasing it so early just to get a 3-4 million sales head start on Sony, Microsoft?!

It really doesn't bother me as I only buy hard copies but that Nintendo let stupid shit like this happen is really wierd. Kinda like the 3DS and releaseing the chunky circle pad pro. How I miss the SNES days. Man the SNES came bundled with Super Mario World and 2 CONTROLS!!! Everything you ever needed for the next 5-6 years right there. No stupid extra shit all the time!!

Remember, nobody's being required to "change" anything. The drives work together, it's not like the issues that early 20 GB X360 owners faced, where they had to buy a new console or wait for new, expensive, proprietary hard drives and do a complicated transfer process. This is a memory expansion. The SSD Memory is meant for smaller things, like little eShop games, saves and small patches, and apps.