Wii U GamePad and software pricing revealed. Former is eye-poppingly hefty

Fresh out of Nintendo's Japanese Wii U presentation is the long mused upon pricing for the Wii U GamePad. What's it going to cost when bought separately? Possibly enough to make multi-GamePad play rather a luxury. Still, games aren't looking too bad (from a UK perspective, anyway).

The GamePad itself is clocking in at 13, 440 yen if you want to buy a second one, which as a direct conversion translates to £107/$172. With the pad getting separate standalone pricing, it seems that Nintendo has plans for it as an additional peripheral. although it should be noted that no games currently support more than one of them. It is though, definitely open to debate whether those plans can take off at that kind of price bracket. To put it into context, that's about half the price of a PS Vita. And if there isn't a significant uptake of second-pad buyers, it's highly doubtful that any third party developers would invest in designs requiring one. Catch 22.

As for games though, New Super Mario Bros. U has been cited at 5985 yen (£48/$77), with Nintendo Land coming in at 4935 yen (£39/$66). No word on any console/software bundles yet though.

Update: Nintendo has confirmed that in the US, games will be priced at $59.99. As for the GamePad, for the time being it isn't being sold separately outside of Japan, so it hasn't been officially priced yet.