New Wii U owners had to go through some trouble first time they booted up their console. A lengthy day-one update had to be downloaded, which in some cases took hours. And if the player got impatient and turned off the Wii U console, it would completely “brick” the device, making it useless.
That’s a serious design flaw in the hardware, and Nintendo is aware of it. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata apologized for 
the issues. “Personally, I think that users should be able to use all the functions of a console video game machine as soon as they open the box,” Iwata said in an interview with IGN, adding “So I feel very sorry for the fact that purchasers of Wii U have to experience a network update which takes such a long time, and that there are the services which were not available at the hardware’s launch.”
Iwata also said that Nintendo isn’t looking to mirror Xbox Live or PlayStation Network with the Wii U’s online features. Instead, Nintendo wants to do something new with the Wii U. One of such things is Miiverse, as Iwata pointed out, which sets Nintendo apart from the competition.
The Wii U launched in North America on Nov 18 and sold over 400,000 units during its first week on the market. It launches in Europe tomorrow (Nov 30), and on December 7 in Japan. Hopefully Nintendo has corrected the issues so that European and Japanese Wii U owners won’t have to go through such a lengthy day-one update.
Source (via Wii U Forums)
