Nintendo has justified its pricing for the Wii U, saying that the high price is due to the high consumer demand for the console.
Scott Moffitt, executive vice president of sales and marketing Nintendo America, told GamesIndustry International that the console has been sold out of pre-orders and this justifies the $299.99 Basic Set and $349.99 for Deluxe Set.
All I can say is that the response has been phenomenal," said Moffitt, Eurogamer reported. "That seems to indicate that the pricing's in a good spot and the proof is in the consumer response."
Moffitt also noted that the higher priced Deluxe Set was selling very fast.
"On opening week we will have more systems on hand for the Wii U than we did for the launch of Wii," he stated. "Our replenishments will be more frequent this holiday time than during the Wii launch."
He also said that there are possibilities of shortages in the supply, given the high demand.
"It's impossible to exactly predict demand, and so I can't say that we won't have some shortages out there and that people won't have to be a little patient," he said.
Meanwhile, Nintendo has provided details of Wii U's storage system, SD card, hard drive support and more. NeoGAF user translated the details, IGN reported.
OS Space:
The Basic bundle comes with 8GB of internal storage and 7.2GB of free memory, while the Deluxe bundle comes with 32GB of space and will have 29GB free memory.
The Wii U OS will take 4.2GB of space. New Super Mario Bros. U is around 2GB, while Nintendo Land is around 3.2GB. So, Basic set owners cannot download both of the games.
USB Hard Drives:
Only one USB drive is to be connected. The console will support up to 2TB of storage.
Drives must be formatted by Data Management system of Wii U and data can be moved internally and externally via Wii U's OS.
Drives with more than USB 2.0 connections will not work in Wii U.
SD Cards:
Though Wii U will accept SD cards, the usage is limited.
Meanwhile, IGN reported that Wii U's GamePad will not offer support to Wii games. Wii games must be played on TV within the console's Wii mode. This mode will work only on the console's controllers and accessories.