The Wii U Launched Today and I Somehow Managed to Royally Screw It Up.

I woke up this morning about an hour before my 6:40 am alarm went off. Running on pure adrenaline I showered, burst through my front door like the Kool-Aid man and drove at ludicrous speed past various department stores looking to see if any lines had formed. Nothing. I was a man alone driving in the cold, mist-covered morning with still plenty of time to kill before Target opened at 8. So I swung by McDonald’s, grabbed a couple of sausage McMuffins, a large assed Coke and found my spot on the second level of the parking lot right outside the door closest to the electronics department. The following visual guide of my experience today begins well enough but like many great tales worth telling, ends in tragedy.

This was the view I had when I wasn’t staring at Super Mario 3D Land. I decided to have a little fun:

When you’re sitting all alone in a car and running on 2 and a half hours of sleep, trust me. You’re easily entertained. Finally around 7:50 it was time to ascend the staircase…

have my eyes burned out by the sun…

realize that I had nothing to stress about all night…

and take my rightful place as the “only dude” in line.

A few others actually joined me at the very last minute. There was some stoner with his girlfriend who had literally only heard of the system the day before and decided to get one. Another was a middle aged woman that went on about how tired she was from playing Just Dance with her kids all night. And the one guy I actually spoke to turned out to be an employee of the store who told me that there were 16 systems available total. 8 of each version (Deluxe and basic). It was really low key and I walked out around 2 after, the proud owner of Nintendo’s new console. It was time to get home and unbox this thing.

I’d seen these set up in stores before today of course but there’s really no better feeling than unwrapping your new Nintendo. To be honest, I’d have preferred the white version because this black system is a dust and fingerprint MAGNET but whatareyagonnado.

As I mentioned in an older post, this tablet feels really, really great to hold. Light, comfortable and just flat out cool. I’d read online that this system was offline out of the box and that it would require a lengthy format update before stuff like Netflix and whatever was accessible. With that in mind I decided to just jump right into Nintendo Land for a little while and was very pleasantly surprised with what I played. Specifically the Pikmin and Metroid attractions which almost feel like full on retail titles rather than the shallow experiences that frankly, I expected this entire game to consist of. I’m very pleased to tell you that it’s actually a lot of fun.

So after that I decide to go ahead and get the system update out of the way while I manage the apocalyptic wasteland of cords and wires behind my television. About 20 minutes into this and with the download not even halfway finished, I somehow manage to do the ONE thing that you’re absolutely not supposed to do. While unplugging my original Wii and rearranging everything I accidently hit the switch on my main power strip and shut everything off. The TV, DVD player, tablet charger and my Wii U console. It turns out this a big no no. After flipping everything back on, the Wii U’s power button lights up but it isn’t sending a signal to the television and when I turn on the gamepad, this is the only screen that comes up:

Which I try over and over again of course but to no successful results. So I hop online to see if anyone else is having this issue and as it shakes out, I’m not alone. Turning off your console in the middle of a system update effectively “bricks” it. Meaning I am currently the proud owner of a 380 dollar paper weight. I get on the horn with Nintendo, explain the ordeal and now I have to ship it off for a repair with a 6-10 day turnaround and that’s me not playing my new system until after Thanksgiving.

Please don’t let this happen to U.