10 Features & Video Games That Could Have Saved The Wii U
2. A Five Hour Battery Included From The Outset
Retailing for a fairly hefty £24.99, the Wii U Gamepad battery pack promised up to 8 hours of use, which was a vast improvement over the 3-5 hours of the original. The reality is that the original battery was never really capable of extended gaming sessions: various YouTubers have performed timed tests that show it running out at the 2.5 hour mark.
It's part of Nintendo's core business strategy to ensure parts in their machines are sourced as cheaply as possible - using so-called "last gen tech" - to ensure price points. The Game Boy Advance SP was the only system to really buck this trend, offering hours of gaming goodness before recharging was needed.
Call it a convenience feature if you will, but the Wii U definitely should have had the larger battery from the get-go. 2 hours flies by when you're deep into a game and is inexcusable given that the larger battery was then sold as an accessory. At the very least the premium battery should have come with the 32GB edition of the system, leaving the 8GB Basic pack with the smaller battery.