In the old days of console gaming, if you didn’t have a memory card to save your game, you weren’t keeping any progress you made. We’ve since moved past that with all modern consoles coming with a hard drive installed, but as games get larger that space isn’t enough. One of the unfortunate design flaws of the Wii U is that it shipped with a maximum of 32GB of space for storing downloaded games. If you’re only using discs to play that’s fine, but installing one game from the Wii U eShop could potentially eat all that space.
That’s why external hard drives are such a great gift idea, even for Xbox and PlayStation gamers. Drives today are relatively cheap and run about $50 for a 500GB hard drive, which has more than enough space to store plenty of games. The Toshiba Canvio drive pictured above is the drive I use with my Wii U. It requires a special set up including a Y USB cord to power it.
Nintendo recommends using an external hard drive that supplies its own power with a wall plug, however. There are several options here.
- Western Digital 2TB – $99
- Seagate Expansion Drive 2TB – $87
Wii U Daily Gift-A-Day Giveaway
This post is part of our Gift-A-Day giveway that we announced earlier this week. Each day until December 21 we’ll be posting one unique gift idea for any gamers in your life, including yourself! We know how hard it can be to get something for the gamer who has everything, so we’re hoping to make that a little easier this holiday season. Prizes include Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, GameCube controllers, amiibo, and even some special surprises we’ll reveal in our live hangout when we announce winners.
Enter below for your chance to win. Winners will be announced on December 22 in a live hangout, where winners will be matched with their prizes. For a look at some of the things we’ll be giving away that day, check out the original announcement post.