Wii U's bricking if shut down during update.

[Beautiful End]

To everyone saying stuff like "DURR CAPTAIN OBVIOUS DONT TURN IT OFF DURRRRR!!1!11!", just chill and read it again.

Yeah, shutting down your system while its updating, or even saving a file, is dumb. Not just a system but any other electronic device. But if the WiiU has indeed an auto turn off feature that kicks in after an hour, then it's not the customer's fault.
Now, I don't have a WiiU so I can't claim there's a way to turn off said feature. But what I do know is that the WiiU is less than a day old. People don't know much about it yet. And honestly, if I would have got one, I would have got the update ASAP before doing anything else just to have my console up and running. And I probably wouldn't have noticed that auto feature. And I probably would have left the console alone while it updated the 5 freakin' GB required for the update!

And it probably would have been bricked because I wouldn't know my stupid WiiU can commit suicide.

Yeah, Nintendo would probably replace the console but there shouldn't be any need. When my TV died for no reason alone, I was pissed but I sent it back to the factory to get it fixed because it was juts bad luck. An isolated case. But when something like this happens...I don't know what to say.

Way to go, Nintendo. Way to set up the example for the next gen. What, jealous much of the PS3 or what?

 

[Denamic]

I'm pretty sure that the breaking horribly if you turn it off mid-update is something that happens to all consoles, not just the WiiU. There was someone here complaining that it happened to his PS3 recently.

Nope. There's failsafes.
If you turn off the PS3 during an update, it'll corrupt the firmware for sure. It'll tell you so during boot and give you the option to reformat and reinstall. I don't know about the 360, but I'm going to assume it does something similar. There's never any guarantees, so if you're unlucky enough to power off during an important BIOS update or something, there's nothing anyone can do. Your system will be permanently bricked no matter what. But during 'normal' update processes, it should survive a shutdown during an update.

 

[WoW Killer]

Even if the auto-shutdown isn't being disabled during updates, that should be easy enough to fix. Like with an update.

Oh.

 

[Schadrach]

I wasn't criticising you

Ninty advertised the consoles would have X amount of memory, but it turns out they don't have separate drives for the OS, so if you get an 8GB console, it's more like a 6GB console.

So, why don't we have a bunch of people rage at Apple for exactly the same thing regarding iPods and iPhones (I assume iPads as well, but no personal experience to verify). The 8GB iPod leaves you with ~6GB of storage for actual data after accounting for iOS, for example.

Actually, according to Nintendo's own explanations the 8Gb model gives you 3Gb to work with and the 32Gb model gives you 25Gb... The best bet is probably buying the 8Gb model and then use the extra 50USD that the premium model would have cost and buy a 500Gb external harddrive. Yeah, Nintendo likes putting those kinds of costs on the consumer.

I disagree, assuming you don't hate Nintendoland. The premium model is 32GB and includes a charging cradle for the game pad (as opposed to just a cable) and Nintendoland as a pack in title for $50 more than the basic model. Nintendoland retails for $60. So you pay -$10 for 24GB of storage and a cradle. That's...certainly not bad.

The thing is, I could have accepted that one model of the Wii U, similarily to the Xbox 360 Arcade, only had 8 (3)Gb data, but that the so called PREMIUM model only have 32 (25)Gb, which is still so little that you will be getting an external hard-drive, that is just bonkers.

Yeah, I suspect everyone will end up with a drive hooked to their Wii. I've got a spare 1TB drive that runs off USB power I'll hook to mine. The external I actually use on my PC is a StarTech InfoSafe in RAID 5 containing 4x WD30EFRX drives.

But then on the other hand, since purchases are apparently not transfarable between Wii U's, which means you seemingly lose your purchases if the Wii U is stolen/broken/bricked during update etc it might be best to stick with physical copies anyway.

I assume they'll do like they did with the Wii and transfer the data between Wii Us/accounts when you send one in for service. Which covers everything but "stolen." I'm surprised with the whole Nintendo Network thing that they don't simply tie your purchases to your NN ID.

To everyone saying stuff like "DURR CAPTAIN OBVIOUS DONT TURN IT OFF DURRRRR!!1!11!", just chill and read it again.

Yeah, shutting down your system while its updating, or even saving a file, is dumb. Not just a system but any other electronic device. But if the WiiU has indeed an auto turn off feature that kicks in after an hour, then it's not the customer's fault.

That feature is disabled during the update procedure. It's also disabled during Wii to Wii U data transfer.

Now, I don't have a WiiU

Clearly, or you'd know what I said above. Patched mine and did the Wii transfer (both hour+ procedures) without touching it in any fashion while it was going on. This is literally someone going "It said to not shut the console down while this is happening, so I'm going to shut the console down while this is happening." I feel for anyone who has a power outage mid-update though, but I'm pretty sure that'll be covered by warranty.

so I can't claim there's a way to turn off said feature.

You can, it's in the system settings menu. You can also change how long it will sit idle before powering down.

People don't know much about it yet. And honestly, if I would have got one, I would have got the update ASAP before doing anything else just to have my console up and running. And I probably wouldn't have noticed that auto feature. And I probably would have left the console alone while it updated the 5 freakin' GB required for the update!

And it probably would have been bricked because I wouldn't know my stupid WiiU can commit suicide.

That's more or less what I did. What's shocking is that every goddamned game had a lengthy patch on release day. Or at least Nintendoland, Assassins Creed III, and New Super MarioBros. U all did.

What really would have happened instead of your console committing suicide is that it would have all worked just fine (though taking it's sweet time), barring you manually shutting down the console, unplugging it, or having a power outage during the time that it warns you specifically not to shut off the console.

Yeah, Nintendo would probably replace the console but there shouldn't be any need. When my TV died for no reason alone, I was pissed but I sent it back to the factory to get it fixed because it was juts bad luck. An isolated case. But when something like this happens...I don't know what to say.

Way to go, Nintendo. Way to set up the example for the next gen. What, jealous much of the PS3 or what?

You'll note that the spate of people who actually have bricked consoles in the comments on the linked article all have something in common -- either they had a power outage or someone unplugged it. No one has claimed that their console self-bricked due to the auto-power off feature.

 

[SlaveNumber23]

Well, the obvious answer is to not turn off your console when updating it. I never turn off anything while it's updating.

The trouble is the update is huge so there is plenty of time while your console is vulnerable for your power to go out or an ignorant family member switches it off or something. Even for people who will never ever intentionally turn off their console, shit does happen.

 

[Whitbane]

Not so much the bricking up if interrupted during the install, it's the fact it auto-shuts down after a small period of time. 5GB download? Jeez, that seems a bit much (maybe because my internet sucks) if you're not constantly checking back on it.

Rustled jimmies aside, it'll get fixed... sometime. Can't wait to see if the games are any good, though.

 

[Whitbane]

Not so much the bricking up if interrupted during the install, it's the fact it auto-shuts down after a small period of time. 5GB download? Jeez, that seems a bit much (maybe because my internet sucks) if you're not constantly checking back on it.

Rustled jimmies aside, it'll get fixed... sometime. Can't wait to see if the games are any good, though.

Eh, do you have any source that states that it auto-shuts? Because all I found states that this is disabled during the update.

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2012/11/09/wii-us-scary-automatic-shutoff-feature

Default setting is one hour, and apparently it doesn't change during the install, meaning if you're doing other things, or forget, and it auto-shuts down, you're fucked!

That being said, you can change it but I bet most won't bother to.

 

[Sylveria]

Uhhh...

Guys?

Bricking is EXACTLY what will happen in a firmware update power cut.

Like, with ANYTHING.

The Wii U will.

A PS3 would.

My computer would.

Your phone would.

The motherboard I use in school projects will.

That's why all these things have a message saying "Do Not Turn This Device Off" during firmware updates! This isn't rocket surgery! D:<

Seriously, unless the auto-turn-off happens during firmware updates (which I bet a million bucks it doesn't), this is the biggest non-story I've seen all month.

And to everyone saying "What if there's a power outage?"

Well, what if there's an outage while the firmware of your phone/PC/other console/other electronics update? Well, you pull out your shiny warranty and get another one for the cost of shipping. Or, do what the guy above me said, and invest in an uninterruptible power supply.

Seriously, this thread consists of nothing but a bizarrely specific attempt to smear the Wii U, in a manner that is comparable to mocking the kettle for being black when the pot, the cauldron, the stove and the pans are ALSO black.

How many Firmware updates are over 5gigs? Even with a fairly decent internet connection, you're looking at at least an hour to download all that + the install time. Not to mention, the Wii-U itself is programmed to shut down if left idle DURING THE UPDATE. They basically programmed the Wii-U to commit suicide.

You can try to paint it as a smear campaign all you want, but the fact exists that there's a non-negligible number of bricked Wii-Us sitting out there because Nintendo released a giant update on day 1 for a system that, by default, will shut itself off during a long update.

Additionally, your stance is one that is paving the way for the exploitative, anti-consumer practices and poor quality that we're seeing in the gaming industry. Oh the machine doesn't work through no fault of your own? Well just pay for shipping to replace it. So a $350 console now becomes about $400 because the developer did something stupid, but we don't blame their obvious bad development choice, it's the users fault that their power/internet went down or something else went wrong - they should have been prepared for such contingencies by having a back-up generator or hard-line internet connection straight to the source instead of the machine having a fail-safe.

 

[Whitbane]

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2012/11/09/wii-us-scary-automatic-shutoff-feature

Default setting is one hour, and apparently it doesn't change during the install, meaning if you're doing other things, or forget, and it auto-shuts down, you're fucked!

That being said, you can change it but I bet most won't bother to.

All I see is proof of the feature, not that it doesn't disable during the update. Not one single link in this thread states that so please, where do you get your assumption from?

Hmm, maybe I am wrong. Judging by the comments from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rmtj5CaSsOU it seems that the timer is turned off during the firmware installation.

But the first post of http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?p=62435065 says that it still shuts down. Though, that might just be assumptions as well.

Not sure now, but I'm probably wrong.

 

[D Moness]

http://kotaku.com/5961662/dont-losebreak-your-wii-u-because-your-nintendo-network-account-is-tied-to-it This is where i read it, although I dont vouch for it being 100% true in the end (which is why I wrote apparently).

Incidently, a thing does not automatically become false just because there are no sources for it. Some healthy skepticism is always good, but things do happen even when humans are not there to document it.

Thanks for the link.
Well the "good" news is that it is for now. Which is weird since nintendo is planning for people to be able to view their user account on other systems (smartphones/pc's etc). Might be a firmware release somewhere in the future. till weird that even though it is tied to a user account that account is tied to your console(gimmie ms option any day where you can download your profile on any x-box



Nothing against you but i prefer a link to claims. People are far to easy presenting opinions as fact when it comes to new consoles.

 

[aguspal]

ahahahah this shit is hilarious, pretty funny and also maybe annoying.


Nintedo will most likely fix it thouhgt.

 

[Schadrach]

Not so much the bricking up if interrupted during the install, it's the fact it auto-shuts down after a small period of time. 5GB download? Jeez, that seems a bit much (maybe because my internet sucks) if you're not constantly checking back on it.

Rustled jimmies aside, it'll get fixed... sometime. Can't wait to see if the games are any good, though.

Eh, do you have any source that states that it auto-shuts? Because all I found states that this is disabled during the update.

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2012/11/09/wii-us-scary-automatic-shutoff-feature

Default setting is one hour, and apparently it doesn't change during the install, meaning if you're doing other things, or forget, and it auto-shuts down, you're fucked!

That being said, you can change it but I bet most won't bother to.

The update screen itself actually states that the auto-power off feature is disabled while updating. What it will do, however, is turn your console off without saving while a game is running if you stop actually playing for an hour.

 

[Schadrach]

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2012/11/09/wii-us-scary-automatic-shutoff-feature

Default setting is one hour, and apparently it doesn't change during the install, meaning if you're doing other things, or forget, and it auto-shuts down, you're fucked!

That being said, you can change it but I bet most won't bother to.

All I see is proof of the feature, not that it doesn't disable during the update. Not one single link in this thread states that so please, where do you get your assumption from?

Hmm, maybe I am wrong. Judging by the comments from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rmtj5CaSsOU it seems that the timer is turned off during the firmware installation.

But the first post of http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?p=62435065 says that it still shuts down. Though, that might just be assumptions as well.

Not sure now, but I'm probably wrong.

Look at the top of the screen in the video you linked. It literally states "The Auto Power-Down function has been temporarily disabled."

I think it bears repeating that no one who actually *has* a Wii U has reported it auto shutting off during updates (myself included, and I didn't touch it while the update downloaded). Just stupid people hearing about the Auto Power-Down function and the lack of protection from bricking if it loses power mid-update and putting two and two together to get 5.

ahahahah this shit is hilarious, pretty funny and also maybe annoying.


Nintedo will most likely fix it thouhgt.

Nothing really to fix, just stupid people coming up with ways to put down the new Nintendo console based on something that sounds vaguely plausible but does not actually occur.

 

[ckam]

Well shit.

Mine said the auto power down was disabled during the update. It's still working on it now, but we'll see. Hope this isn't RRD all over again.

EDIT: All you have to do to keep it from shutting down is wiggle the analog stick every ten minutes

EDIT 2: Mine works just fine after the update. As stated before, you must wiggle the stick and keep the screen from fading to dark very 10 minutes or so. I think that's the quickest fix

How long are the updates? If it's more than 10 minutes, then I think the system's being counter-productive.

 

[lord.jeff]

Where is this idea of the WiiU shutting itself off during updates come from, the linked article mentions nothing of the one hour auto shut off happening during an update, it seems to me that you're just looking for reasons to hate the WiiU.

 

[Schadrach]

Well shit.

Mine said the auto power down was disabled during the update. It's still working on it now, but we'll see. Hope this isn't RRD all over again.

EDIT: All you have to do to keep it from shutting down is wiggle the analog stick every ten minutes

EDIT 2: Mine works just fine after the update. As stated before, you must wiggle the stick and keep the screen from fading to dark very 10 minutes or so. I think that's the quickest fix

How long are the updates? If it's more than 10 minutes, then I think the system's being counter-productive.

The system update is fucking huge (5GB, I think?), and practically every game has a launch-day update.

The 10 minute thing is just a fade down, the automatic power off is default one hour, and is disabled during the update anyways.

 

[Whitbane]

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2012/11/09/wii-us-scary-automatic-shutoff-feature

Default setting is one hour, and apparently it doesn't change during the install, meaning if you're doing other things, or forget, and it auto-shuts down, you're fucked!

That being said, you can change it but I bet most won't bother to.

All I see is proof of the feature, not that it doesn't disable during the update. Not one single link in this thread states that so please, where do you get your assumption from?

Hmm, maybe I am wrong. Judging by the comments from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rmtj5CaSsOU it seems that the timer is turned off during the firmware installation.

But the first post of http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?p=62435065 says that it still shuts down. Though, that might just be assumptions as well.

Not sure now, but I'm probably wrong.

Look at the top of the screen in the video you linked. It literally states "The Auto Power-Down function has been temporarily disabled."

I think it bears repeating that no one who actually *has* a Wii U has reported it auto shutting off during updates (myself included, and I didn't touch it while the update downloaded). Just stupid people hearing about the Auto Power-Down function and the lack of protection from bricking if it loses power mid-update and putting two and two together to get 5.

ahahahah this shit is hilarious, pretty funny and also maybe annoying.


Nintedo will most likely fix it thouhgt.

Nothing really to fix, just stupid people coming up with ways to put down the new Nintendo console based on something that sounds vaguely plausible but does not actually occur.

In that case, then shouldn't this be common knowledge of "don't touch crap when it's updating important stuff"?

 

[GAunderrated]

This is going to be a huge problem for nintendo's console and a lot of angry casual customers/ children. Those of us in the Escapist are the extreme minority (like .001%) from the non-informed customers that normally buy gaming systems and software.

I can see it now, xmas morning timmy gets his WiiU, he unboxes it and hooks it up, sees the update required and clicks it, plays with other toys until it is done, comes back to see his WiiU silent, the screen black, and his xmas is ruined.

All joking aside, I can't expect one random customer who doesn't do any research on products (about 90% of them)to expect a console to auto turn off after an hour of no movement.

On the case of people still defending nintendo's storage prices by saying that they are doing it so the console is cheaper, that is a dirty tactic. You are essentially requiring the customer to foot the bill while pretending that they are getting a good deal. When in reality when you buy the WiiU, one game, and the memory for future use (500gb is my estimate) you are looking at over $500 bucks after tax. A little expensive for last gen's specs.

 

[BeerTent]

5 GB?!

So, if you get the base model, you only get 3 GB of memory?

Great job Nintendo, assuming that's the case ¬_¬

From what I have seen of my Neighbor's Wii U he still had a good six Gigs out of his eight from the firmware update. A Large Download doesn't necessarily mean it will be taking up the extra space, it could replace or fix or add to the existing data already on the HDD.

So you don't actually get 8 GB of space, it's more like 6?

Genius.

Don't be a smartalec.

Again, I don't have the console so I am unsure of the exact details, it is just what they had told me. They aren't exactly the most brilliant with technology either, you know how frat boys are.

I wasn't criticising you

Ninty advertised the consoles would have X amount of memory, but it turns out they don't have separate drives for the OS, so if you get an 8GB console, it's more like a 6GB console.

No offense, but where do you expect the OS to go? It's like if I gave you a computer with 20GB of space and a windows disc and said, "Have fun with your 20GB HDD." We both know there's nowhere else for windows to go once your ready to use it.

Consoles are computers. Thinking of them as anything else is silly. They need their own OS/BIOS, and that requires some space.

Even then, the cost of HDD's are going down. Nintendo was nice enough to include support for removable media. Spend an additional $50 for a 500GB HDD and you won't have to worry about space.

 

[Lucane]

5 GB?!

So, if you get the base model, you only get 3 GB of memory?

Great job Nintendo, assuming that's the case ¬_¬

From what I have seen of my Neighbor's Wii U he still had a good six Gigs out of his eight from the firmware update. A Large Download doesn't necessarily mean it will be taking up the extra space, it could replace or fix or add to the existing data already on the HDD.

So you don't actually get 8 GB of space, it's more like 6?

Genius.

Don't be a smartalec.

Again, I don't have the console so I am unsure of the exact details, it is just what they had told me. They aren't exactly the most brilliant with technology either, you know how frat boys are.

I wasn't criticising you

Ninty advertised the consoles would have X amount of memory, but it turns out they don't have separate drives for the OS, so if you get an 8GB console, it's more like a 6GB console.

PS3 are about the same way they advertise the full size space but actually remove about 5gbs for system info so you're short about 5gb compared to what it says on the side of the box.

Just you know they never sold a model that only had less than half of it's memory empty for multiple purpose use.