So far, the biggest complaint I have about the console is the battery life of the GamePad. I've tried turning down the brightness and turning on power save mode, and it still tops out around 4 hours. I even tried turning the display off while watching Amazon and it lasted maybe an hour more than with the display on.
I really hope someone (Nyko?) steps up to the plate and release larger batteries soon.
Battery life isn't a big deal if you leave it plugged in. The biggest complaint I have with the system is the SLUGGISH OS. When people on GAF said it was slow, i brushed it off. When co-workers mentioned that it was laggy, I figured that they didn't have any patience.
My friend, Nintendo has some work to do.
I'm not a hater and I actually think that the WiiU is an awesome secondary system. I bought the Deluxe version and even (painfully) sold my PS3 for it because having all three systems, an iPad, and a macbook pro was just too much.
So the WiiU is a very pleasant system. All of the menus, music, and user-end stuff are a pretty easy-going experiences. HOWEVER...you will do a LOT of waiting to do ANYTHING.
As soon as you boot up the system, the first update takes an hour. You already know that, though.
Netflix? Amazon? Youtube? ANY Game? Prepare to download the app, then update it. This process takes about 5 minutes each. Okay, let's say that you're patient and decided to download and update all of your 'video' patches all at once. You've already blocked off 20 min to take care of Youtube, Netflix, Amazon, and you've already done the hour long patch. Okay That's already about an hour and 20 minutes of NOT playing ANYTHING.
Now, you've got Nintendo land. Get ready for another patch to download. 2-5 min. NSMB? 2-5 min. I decided to try MiiVerse. Guess what? download another patch. 2-5 min.
I started around 9pm and didn't finish patching everything until about midnight. This was before i could play A SINGLE GAME. This includes creating your accounts, etc. I never owned a Wii, so I did everything from scratch. Also, this includes charging my Gamepad for about 45 min because when you buy it, it recommends charging it.
I decided to download ZombieU. The game was about 5+ gigs, and I set it up to download overnight. I woke up at 8 am this morning to find out that the system turned itself off. It completed about 85 %, so it took another 30 minutes to download the rest.
I finally download it and guess what? IT HAS to install? i'm not too annoyed because PS3 games have to install. Imagine my surprise at the 30 MINUTE install in REAL TIME. As of this writing, with 10 minutes to go, i still can't play zombieU.
Now, if the system is having THESE kind of core problems from Nintendo's architecture from Nintendo themselves, I think people need to REALLY scale back their expectations that the WiiU will EVER be able to complete with even year ONE of the next gen. To be frank, I don't even think that it can capably do the best stuff from THIS gen without compromise.
At first, i thought that the hiccups in some of the launch titles was due to Nintendo just not getting dev kits to developers in a reasonable amount of time. That may be part of it. However, I think that Nintendo kept the costs low, and the tech 'good enough' for a very specific purpose.
I don't think that Nintendo 'ever' reasonably planned to court the really big guys. Looking at their fantastic e-store (think PSN store with FANTASTIC placement of indie games), I believe that Nintendo's plan is to create an amazing space for AA (not AAA) games and indie devs, where they can manage their own prices, fetch more than they would on iOS or other platforms, and have the jewel AAA experiences come, as always, from Nintendo themselves.
Skyrim, GTA, any major open world game? THat's not gonna happen on WiiU. Not without serious technical wizardry. At least, not at parity with current gen stuff.
This makes me SAD because i bought the wii U as a STRONG alt to my PS3, and it has become obvious that now my Xbox 360 will remain my primary. That said, the WiiU is a fantastic device, despite the hiccups. You'll get that 'good feeling' playing the family friendly games. NintendoLand, when you finally get around to playing it, is a BLAST. I've played nearly every mini game, and love them all.
There's a lot to like about the WiiU, and a lot of odd hiccups like antiquated menu navigation and, GOD THE WAITING ON EVERYTHING.
Anytime my wife takes a nap, wakes up, and asks, "You're STILL not playing anything?" You have a problem.