I don't understand what Nintendo is thinking. If they're making a big push towards digital distribution, why does the Wii U only have 8GB of on-board storage? If they're banking on Wii U owners purchasing and downloading full retail games, they're going to run into a problem after someone gets their second game. Where are they going to put it? Storage may be cheap, but most of the audience Nintendo is going after may not know how to connect an external hard drive, let alone want to pay for it.  It'll be the same initial storage problems with the Wii all over again, but worse because the games are bigger.

Third parties with big games who rely on DLC (Call of Duty, etc.) may also feel limited. The PS3 and 360 has a wealth of space so they can make as much DLC as they want knowing those consoles have a lot of storage by default. With the Wii U, if someone downloads a game, then all the DLC for the game, there may not be enough space on the system to get it all in there. (Nintendo may also mandate smaller file sizes for DLC for this reason, which would make it a nightmare for third parties to pare some cross-platform content down to fit into Nintendo's restrictions.) At that point, they can't buy more DLC content or games until they buy more storage space. Sounds like a frustration waiting to happen all the way around.

Nintendo needs to put more storage into the Wii U before launch. This is one thing they can't afford to skimp on if they want to be taken seriously in the digital download space.

That's only a rumor. We don't know how much, if any, built-in memory the Wii U will have.

External Hard Drive. Having one built in would increase the price of the system, and not everyone will go digital.

We don't know how much, but I think its a certainty there will be at least some for firmware updates and the OS and so on. You can't upgrade the firmware without having internal storage, and since Nintendo would want to lock out the homebrew/hacker community they need to have firmware updates, and therefore they need internal storage.

By what, $10? Even an OEM 20GB hard drive couldn't cost more than that to build in to the console. But of course, Nintendo would rather you spend $40 or more for the same amount of storage in an external hard drive (which they may not profit on if they get it from a non-Nintendo source) if you needed that much more space, instead spending it on games and content.

Didn't EA say just last week that they're eventually "going to be a 100% digital company, period?" Nintendo themselves said they're going to push digital distribution of games. The end-user may not want to go digital, but the game companies sure as hell do, and they're going to make consumers do it whether they want it or not.

I can't imagine the Wii U (or Nintendo) being successful in the digital game sales space unless it has enough on-board storage to future-proof itself. For me, it was a hassle to juggle SD cards and the Wii's on-board storage with all the content I got, even after the SD card update. I don't think I'd be interested in getting another gaming console if I know I'm going to have to hassle with deciding which two games I can fit onto my Wii U's internal storage, if the 8GB storage rumor turns out to be true.

I think Nintendo's decision against an internal HDD has more to do with moving parts and failure rates than cost. That said, they definitely seem deadset on betting that external plug-and-play USB HDDs, which are exceeding 1 TB of storage in many cases, will be acceptable as the best solution for those whose downloading needs easily outclass the internal storage.

Nintendo is tired. Hurry up and put out the wii u so that it will fail. then maybe that'll  knock em in their stuborn heads. and make fans something better. And this is different, wii had motion control, once that buzz was over it all went down. People are demanding 'Power'. And nintendo buying their own stocks and biased reviews and forums, stupid, all the effort to not aspire. :p

Wow! Losers like this guy still exist? I thought joining a forum just to troll got played out years ago. Hahaha, this guy...