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Nintendo Reveals Japanese Wii U Price, Launch Details

Which means you should be taking the prices listed with a grain of salt, okay?

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Just hours ahead of a event in New York, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata announced key launch details about the Wii U as part of a late-night (for us here in America, anyway) Nintendo Direct event.

The machine will launch in Japan on December 8 for in two forms. A basic set, with 8GB of memory, for 26,250 yen ($337), and a premium, black version with 32GB of memory for 31,500 yen ($405). Those yen-to-dollar conversions aren't indicative of what it will actually cost here, by the way. Expect it to be lower, and possibly with a pack-in.

Remember, Nintendo did not ship the WIi with Wii Sports in Japan.

The deluxe version also includes Nintendo Network Premium, which will provide an unspecific amount of points for purchase, and 10% back (off?) digital purchases. Nintendo Network will be available on every device, obviously.

If you want to buy a separate Wii U Game Pad, it'll cost you 13,440 yen ($172). Yeah, it's expensive, and the machine will only support two Game Pads. Again, that price will change over here. $150 sounds about right.

Several accessories were also announced, including a stand for the Game Pad.

New Super Mario Bros. U and NintendoLand will both be available at launch in digital and retail forms. In Japan, New Super Mario Bros. U will retail for about 6000 yen ($77) and Nintendo Land for about 5000 yen ($64). It's easy to imagine that being $60 and $50 over here, but who knows? Maybe lower?

More details on Wii U launch software is being saved for the other event later today.

Iwata went over some basic specifications inside Wii U, but in typical Nintendo fashion, the company left plenty for people to speculate about. The machine supports outputs up to 1080p, and uses a "GPGPU." (No, I don't know what that means, either.) There's 2GB of memory within the system--1GB system memory, 1GB game memory. Finally, Wii U's game discs can feature up to 25GB.

In just a few hours, we'll know more. Another streaming event from Japan will go over more launch software, and there's the completely separate event in New York, too. Madness!

(Thanks to 8-4 Play's John Ricciardi and NeoGAF member Cheesemeister for play-by-play translation of the event.)

Patrick Klepek on Google+

184 Comments

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DeF

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Edited By DeF

@crithon said:

@DeF said:

@crithon said:

8 gig and 32 gig model..... Oh boy, that's a problem. This at least answers why Trine 2 is a disc game, but even that game is about 2.6 gigs big without the DLC..... even if they can get away with some virtual console collections, they aren't serious about download games. They might get some standar cell phone ports to use that touch screen, but it's not like they are going to have something like Trine on their store any time soon.

Trine 2 is NOT a disc game. It's a downloadable title.

They fully expect you to expand the memory with SD cards or USB hard drives if YOU are serious about downloading. I think them going day-1 digital download with first party titles is as serious as you can get about downloading.

No news if Trine 2 Director's Cut is on a disc or Download. I'm betting it's a disc, just don't know who's publishing it, Ubisoft would have mentioned if they were involved by now.

I don't know man, not having a lot of Faith in Nintendo at this point. Trine 2 would be a great game to have with Rayman Origins as this excellence in 2D platforming. I mean Nintendo did that update for the Wii's SD cards, oh boy those early months transfering data between SD cards was HORRIBLE. I don't know, I think Nintendo is really going to coast on Virtual Console Ports and Cell phone games that use the touch screen. saying 32 gigs is just admitting "your not going to install anything to the HDD."

I don't know man, they gotta prove themselves. Over 2 gig download of Trine 2 through Nintendo's internet speed.... they got a lot to prove.

Trine 2: Director's Cut has only ever been talked about as a downloadable eShop game in the $15-$20 range ready for launch. Also, why Ubisoft? ATLUS published Trine 2.

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DeF

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Edited By DeF

@Demoskinos said:

@Clint said:

GPGPU is a General Purpose GPU. In games, that basically means Physicssssss. Or, if you prefer, PhysX.

Hmm... and now suddenly I'm interested to see Batman run on this thing just to see if it could do all the fancy PC PhsyX stuff.

Won't happen. It's still a simple console port. Would definitely be nice but I just don't think they'll pull any rabbits out of their hats with this port. Especially because an unproven brand new studio (WB Games Montreal) is porting the game.

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Jazz_Lafayette

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Edited By Jazz_Lafayette

That is not a lot of internal storage. Maybe I would feel better about it if they translated those numbers into blocks.

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BlatantNinja23

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Edited By BlatantNinja23

$300 sounds about right now, though I find it crazy that the most they 32 GB seeing that in some cases that'll hold like two games. That and the Nov 16 rumors sound about right as well for the US. Everything is falling into place to basically be the wii launch.

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isomeri

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Edited By isomeri

Doesn't the Wii U controller require a sensor bar? If it does, then launching the console without one included would be straight up illegal where I live.

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willin

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Edited By willin

@Vegetable_Side_Dish said:

Perfect.

AW SNAP, MY MAIN MAN REGGIE GONNA TAKE THAT BS? NAW SON!

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geirr

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Edited By geirr

I've lost touch with Nintendo so much and I don't think this WiiU is going to help. I'd like to be proven wrong though and time will tell. Eitherway I can only assume that GB coverage of the WiiU launch will be awesome so there's that!

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DeF

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Edited By DeF

@isomeri said:

Doesn't the Wii U controller require a sensor bar? If it does, then launching the console without one included would be straight up illegal where I live.

It obviously doesn't. But the controller has a sensor bar built in.

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Justin258

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Edited By Justin258

@patrickklepek said:

There's 2GB of memory within the system--1GB system memory, 1GB game memory. Finally, Wii U's game discs can feature up to 25GB.

Do you mean 1GB of system memory and 1GB of video memory? I can't fathom why a console would need a whole gigabyte of memory for its OS at all times and not the game.

Anyway, ~$300-$350 is an easy sell for a console if they can come up with some good games for it. ~$150-175 for a controller, though - that's much harder to swallow.

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iGooner7

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Edited By iGooner7

Hyped to get the console! Im guessing $250 for the Basic and $300 for the Premium!

NINTENDO! GET IN!!

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habibyjohnson

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Edited By habibyjohnson

@believer258: Well it needs os specific ram to run Miiverse (which is "on" at all times), and presumably to run the whole second screen without delay thing

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DukesT3

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Edited By DukesT3

50,000 Brad Bucks.

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vinsanityv22

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Edited By vinsanityv22

I don't want a Wii U. But my Wii broke and I want to play Last Story. Which, because I pre-ordered it on Amazon, I received and have not yet opened.

I feel like paying for a Wii repair NOW would be stupid, so I'll probably get one of these anyway:( The same thing happened with my DS Lite - the console broke (dead touch screen, loose hinge, R trigger on the fritz) about 3 months after the 3DS came out and I ended up buying one of those too against my will. I find the timing on these events very suspicious, Nintendo....

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codetherion

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Edited By codetherion

Too Bad the black model will be more expensive secondary model. I found it to be much more appealing to the eye and had my fingers crossed for it to become the main.

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nick_verissimo

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Edited By nick_verissimo

I'd guess NA gets one SKU and it'll cost $329.99. I say this because that would be the price at which I couldn't justify buying a Wii U.

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deactivated-5abeb9715d7a2

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It was nice knowing you Nintendo. Thanks for all the great times with the NES, SNES and your portable offerings. Hopefully you'll manage to stick around like Sega and still make games.

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DeF

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Edited By DeF

@believer258 said:

@patrickklepek said:

There's 2GB of memory within the system--1GB system memory, 1GB game memory. Finally, Wii U's game discs can feature up to 25GB.

Do you mean 1GB of system memory and 1GB of video memory? I can't fathom why a console would need a whole gigabyte of memory for its OS at all times and not the game.

Anyway, ~$300-$350 is an easy sell for a console if they can come up with some good games for it. ~$150-175 for a controller, though - that's much harder to swallow.

Video chat while in-game, for example.

While the controller price is really really high, that's a single one-time purchase. You will only ever need to buy a single one of these since the Wii U only supports two GamePads total (and only if you care about those probably few games that will support two). "Normal" multiplayer with Wiimotes/Pro Controller with 4-5 people will only require those regularly priced controllers.

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Thoseposers

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Edited By Thoseposers

for all the people flipping their shit about memory you can extend it with sd cards or a hard drive which should easily give you enough space for full game downloads and dlc. I figure the type of people on this site are the people that have that kind of memory just sitting around their house

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Mumrik

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Edited By Mumrik

Patrick is cool with writing that he doesn't know what GPGPU is when it is so easy to look up? Also, it's actually a pretty normal expression in the context of GPUs...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPGPU

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ArtisanBreads

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Edited By ArtisanBreads

$150 controller.... ooo boy.

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Justin258

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Edited By Justin258

@habibyjohnson said:

@believer258: Well it needs os specific ram to run Miiverse (which is "on" at all times), and presumably to run the whole second screen without delay thing

@DeF said:

@believer258 said:

@patrickklepek said:

There's 2GB of memory within the system--1GB system memory, 1GB game memory. Finally, Wii U's game discs can feature up to 25GB.

Do you mean 1GB of system memory and 1GB of video memory? I can't fathom why a console would need a whole gigabyte of memory for its OS at all times and not the game.

Anyway, ~$300-$350 is an easy sell for a console if they can come up with some good games for it. ~$150-175 for a controller, though - that's much harder to swallow.

Video chat while in-game, for example.

While the controller price is really really high, that's a single one-time purchase. You will only ever need to buy a single one of these since the Wii U only supports two GamePads total (and only if you care about those probably few games that will support two). "Normal" multiplayer with Wiimotes/Pro Controller with 4-5 people will only require those regularly priced controllers.

But both of those take up an entire gigabyte?

Just having 1GB for games doesn't sound bad at all to me. Consoles are much more efficient with resources than PC's so that's not an outlandishly low number, which is why I'm finding it so odd that the console always needs an entire gigabyte for itself. As much as a game? Really? That sounds like there are some excessive programs running in the background or something of that sort - like that video chatting, I can't imagine who would do that for more than a few minutes if they turned on their console to play a game. Voice chatting and music playing is possible with far less than that, you can do both at the same time on the Xbox while playing a multiplayer game.

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John1912

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Edited By John1912

So that 1Gb system memory is not for games? I dont get it? Thats too little for storage of fucking anything. It would be better for games even if it never got used.

Yea, so 150$ controller that is pretty much a huge waste. You know they will end up making a normal controller without a screen making it even more pointless. So far their hardware choices look worse then the Wii which was already shit. I dont know, they better show something fucking worthwhile for the extra screen and Im not talking in game maps, or quick item selection. Looks like the Game Cube continues to be the last system Ill ever buy from Nintendo.

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Scarabus

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Edited By Scarabus

Snore. Why would I buy a Wii 2 when the first one was junk?

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Homeslice

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Edited By Homeslice

I'm not sure who this system is for, other than fans of Nintendo products.

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DeF

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Edited By DeF

@Scarabus said:

Snore. Why would I buy a Wii 2 when the first one was junk?

Because it's not like the first one maybe? If you wanna troll, try a little harder at least.

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BambamCZ

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Edited By BambamCZ

And EU will get shafted again. Still good to see Nintendo is not trying to pull another "599$"

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dropabombonit

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Edited By dropabombonit

Even if it ends up cheaper in the US/EU it still seems like a lot to me. Doing a post graduate course this year and barely have the money for that, so Wii U is a no go for me

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begilerath

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Edited By begilerath

@Chavtheworld said:

2GB memory? Fuuuuuck old hardware is old.

Also those prices equate to £209-251. Watch the prices go down to $300-350 in the US and up in the UK to £250-300. We will get shafted as usual!

How exactly 2 GB are "old"? I think you mean low spec or something like that. For example 2GB of DDR3 memory are probably going to perform better than 3GB of DDR memory at the same clock speed.

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Cloudenvy

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Edited By Cloudenvy

@BambamCZ said:

And EU will get shafted again.

Probably! Thanks Nintendo, but no thanks.

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DeF

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Edited By DeF

@BambamCZ said:

And EU will get shafted again. Still good to see Nintendo is not trying to pull another "599$"

Nintendo always priced their consoles in the 200-250 range in previous generations, though.

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RE_Player1

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Edited By RE_Player1

No thanks.

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Thoseposers

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Edited By Thoseposers

@John1912: a controller without the screen is just a normal controller...which they're selling as well, so i don't know why you're complaining

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Jeric

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Edited By Jeric

"Several accessories were also announced, including a stand for the Game Pad."

I'm already worried. One of the problems I have with Nintendo is their love for peripherals. I figured the Wiimotes and the pad would be enough, but I know there's gonna be a lot more >_>

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DeF

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Edited By DeF

@Thoseposers said:

@John1912: a controller without the screen is just a normal controller...which they're selling as well, so i don't know why you're complaining

The "normal" Pro Controller won't be compatible with all games though. Only stuff in which the GamePad features are optional (like most 3rd party multiplatform games).

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TadThuggish

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Edited By TadThuggish

Really stoked about Mario's first appearance on the Xbox 3 in February 2014.

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Phatmac

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Edited By Phatmac

599 US DOLLARS!

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Popogeejo

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Edited By Popogeejo

@Jeric: It's just a stand, dude.

Why do gamers almost always assume the worst?

"Shit, son, someone is selling an umbrella! That must mean the sky is going to fall!"

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ChrisTaran

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Edited By ChrisTaran

HD space is sparser than I'd like, but as far as specs and price, it is exactly where I expected them to be.

Won't be grabbing it at launch, but it will certainly be a purchase within the next year or 2 for me.

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banishedsoul1

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Edited By banishedsoul1

doesnt japan have tax added on to the price?

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algertman

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Edited By algertman

@Phatmac said:

599 US DOLLARS!

Kaz would be proud.

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algertman

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Edited By algertman

I wonder if anyone on the East Coast could call Gamestop 10am their time to see if they are doing pre orders.

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Peanut

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Edited By Peanut

You know all the negativity from every bit of game news from the games community is really getting me down. Does nobody give a fuck about anything anymore? Is there no one out there who just loves games? It seems like if people aren't going to buy it they're finding some other way to take an unnecessary dig. Come on guys. Can't we just be excited we're getting a new piece of hardware?

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theslothking

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Edited By theslothking

@RecSpec said:

If the premium version is $300 I may seriously consider buying one. 32gb isn't a lot though, so I wonder how the storage on it works.

I believe you can hook up any external storage thing to it

Edit: beaten

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Kazona

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Edited By Kazona

Really, Nintendo? Selling a console that is only slightly more powerfull than the ps3 and 360 for double the price is ridiculous, and i can't imagine anyone who thinks this a good deal

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Lavapotamus

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Edited By Lavapotamus

I hope external storage is an option. If it isn't, I don't understand how 32GB will be enough for anyone. That's the Premium version, too! I laughed at the 8GB rumors because I figured Nintendo would understand that a reasonably-sized harddrive would be important on a console meant to have a competent digital distribution strategy...I was completely wrong, I guess.

I still want one, but the storage thing is a huge drag. I don't want to have to juggle purchases on a tiny harddrive like I had to with the Wii.

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Edited By AndrewB

If we adjust things to what they'll probably be in the US, starting at $300, that's pretty much where I figured it would be. That controller with a screen is actually expensive to produce, I'm sure.

The Wii U is indeed more powerful than... ummm... current generation hardware, so factoring in the controller, the price isn't a huge leap higher than the heavily discounted models of the 360 and PS3.

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prestonhedges

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Edited By prestonhedges
In Japan, New Super Mario Bros. U will retail for about 6000 yen ($77) and Nintendo Land for about 5000 yen ($64). It's easy to imagine that being $60 and $50 over here, but who knows? Maybe lower?

...Why are you asking me?

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Zohar

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Edited By Zohar

I've heard people talk about GPGPUs in the context of them fully replacing CPUs. Does this mean the Wii U lacks a CPU?