Yeah that type of graphical distortion is definitely a GPU overheating/ failure issue. I had it happen on my original 360 when playing Red Dead Redemption, which later on that day red-ringed on me permanently, and I've had a similar issue with an old Vaio laptop of mine whenever I tried to run anything more intensive than a 480p video on it.

Take it back to the store you bought it from and ask for a replacement, its faulty hardware.

]blacky[;48901029 said:

Are you really sure?

I have not played on my Wii U since two weeks, so I haven’t got the chance to test this issue. But I want to be sure, that everything works fine when “Monster Hunter” and “LEGO City Undercover” arrive, because I have holidays from work at this time.
I don’t want to send my Wii U to Nintendo. :-(

A few more responses would be nice.

Click to expand...

I can't be sure from a screen, but it's very typical for a GPU issue to output that sort of pattern, yes. Is your Wii U well ventilated? My launch Wii, which is fine after all these years, briefly had a graphical issue when I was at a friend's house. It was overheating because it was sitting on a small stack of magazines, and its tiny feet weren't enough to keep it from resting directly on the magazines, and that was enough to cause a problem. But at home, it's on a hard surface and has always been fine.

So anyway, if there's nothing you can change to be extra nice to it heat-wise, I'd get that thing replaced if it does that more than once or twice.

The hard locks that are "normal" don't produce graphical distortions. They simply freeze the screen, and often cause a steady tone from the speakers.

Well, this is different: I haven't had any hard locks since the last few updates. Now the system freezes on Your Shape Fitness (digital download) every time it pauses to load a second exercise sequence from the program schedule mode. Same spot.

Everything is fine, sequence 1 loads and plays through to the end. At the loading screen for sequence 2, instant hard lock with the tone of death.

FYI, no hard locks happened with Your Shape prior to the firmware update a few days ago.

Guess I'll start leaving notes on Miiverse if nobody's done it yet.