Don’t Expect To Buy Another Wii U GamePad At Launch

Categories: Announcements, Hardware, Nintendo, Wii U | 0 comments

So, we know that the Wii U is being sold starting November 18th. We also know that it’s being sold from $300 to $350 as well. Hell, we even know that the Wii U will work with Wii controllers, and that Wii U games will cost $59.99 at launch. But what about the GamePad? What is the price for that?

Well… we don’t know for sure. According to the Japanese press release about the Wii U, the Wii U GamePad will cost about 13440 Yen, which is equivalent to about $172. That’s quite a bit of dough!

The reason why we don’t know for sure what the price will be is because of the fact that Nintendo will not be selling GamePads at launch. According to Nintendo product marketing manager Bill Trinen since “none of the launch-window titles support dual GamePad play”, they’re not going sell standalone GamePads. In a way, though, it kind of makes sense. If the Wii U is anything like its predecessor, Nintendo is going to have a hard time keeping the shelves stocked with the system, and if I had to guess I would say that the part Nintendo is going to have the most trouble in producing will be the GamePad controller. After the initial run on the Wii U has run its course, however, I’m willing to bet that it won’t be too long until we see more GamePads being offered separately in stores!

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Written by Chuck Corbin

Growing up in Bloomington, Indiana, Chuck has always had a love of games, starting with the Sega Genesis and the GameBoy, and that love has evolved into building and tweaking his PC. You can follow him on Twitter here!