Can I buy a wii u game pad seperate??

So like a week ago my wii u game pad broke, I was looking up if I could buy another one. But all of them are like 1-2 years old, and I would like to know if it can be bought separately. Or if I should just buy a pro controller.

Nope. They refuse to sell the, For some reason. Got to get a new console basically :(

I would have expected that they would at least sell replacements in their parts store, but I didn't even see a listing there. At least you can buy batteries. I guess the only option is to call customer support.

They really, really need to have an easily accessible way to get a replacement if they're not gonna sell them packaged at retail.

I've been playing Smash and I swear I'm gonna break these damn sticks...

@frostyryan: The issue is that people are not well informed. If Nintendo sold game pads in ANY form, even only in their parts store online as a "replacement", you know that some idiot would buy an extra game pad and then be mad that his Wii U can't use 2 game pads at once for multiplayer games (the console barely has the horsepower to output video to 1 game pad).

I mean, you'd think the easier solution would just be to make that more clear so that people won't buy them except as replacements, but messaging is not nintendo's strength lately, so instead they only give out new game pads if you send them a broken one.

I'd like to suggest you get one of those Classic Pro controllers instead & you can get them for a great price on Amazon still at $38.

Either way, he still has to get a Wii U gamepad eventually if he wants to access the options menu. That menu is tablet only.

@bradbrains said:

Jesus christ, it's 2014. Jesus, Nintendo. Wow.

Nintendo really dropped the ball with the Wii U controller. Imagine how cheap the Wii U would be without that thing. Microsoft dropped the Kinect stuff thankfully, but many of the Wii U's games require the goofy tablet and it would be hard to retroactively make older games has a "Gamepad Required" label.

I don't like it being so hard to replace a controller on a game console. I've worn through an Xbox 360 controller (The thumb stick lost so much rubber that the exposed plastic hurts your thumb) and broken the shoulder button on my 3DS from playing Kid Icarus. One of these takes 15 minutes to the store to get, the other takes three weeks sending it and getting it back from the company.

The battery situation is pretty sad too, though Sony seemed to chase that "feature" well enough.

Didn't they backpedal on their one-Gamepad-only limit? I seem to remember them revealing two gamepads playing simultaneously at some point, but I've never heard of that being possible. Was it just swept under the rug?

Why get a new gamepad when you can get a brand new Mario/Peach/Whatever branded Gamecube controller!

It's called Smash Brothers for a reason.