Ok here's the skinny from my experience:
I ordered on Sunday afternoon. Paid $5 for the cheapest shipping possible. It arrived on Tuesday! I am in Portland OR which is only 3 hours from Redmond, so ymmv.
Everything seems brand new. Plastic puffy wrap stuck to everything. Not a fingerprint or scratch to be found on anything. Nintendo land is in like new condition with a beautiful disc and case, but it wasn't shrink wrapped. Has a club Nintendo code inside as well.
Hooked it all up and started the system update which took about an hour over my wifi. Went straight to the eshop and bought Super Mario World. Played it on the game pad while my wife watched it on our tv. Works like a dream. We traded plays for a while and really had fun revisiting classic Mario.
Later that night I played Zombi U. Holy crap, what a showcase title! I had all the lights off and my wife was in bed upstairs. I plugged headphones into the game pad, changed the sound output in the options, and gave it a good 2 hours of uninterrupted play. It was awesome! I got totally immersed. The way it uses the game pad to have you scan ala Metroid is really a neat way to bring you into it kind of like VR. It even casts light in the game which creates more shadows and effects. Very cool.
The sound in Zombi U is also pretty good! I heard far off screaming and wailing that really does tend to freak me out because it can be hard to tell when they've seen you or when they're just screaming like the souls of the damned that they are. It's pretty creepy. Graphics seem pretty good to me too.
One encounter had me swarmed by about 5 zeds. I ran out if space to back up, so I drew my gun and emptied my mag rather clumsily because aiming isn't a total cakewalk in this game, which I like. It feels more realistic. So after my mag is empty, I decide to just run to any place that doesn't have grabbing hands and biting mouths. In my haste I passed the exit right up, so I had to shake another zed and double back for it before the other pack arrived. I barely made it! It was pretty exhilarating.
Overall, I'm very pleased to be a new owner of the Wii U. There's a good number of games I want and I already have Mario Kart arriving tomorrow. With N64 virtual console on the way the future really looks bright for me. I think my wife and I will play this thing forever and have it serve as our Nintendo history machine once I've bought all the classics we want. Fuckin awesome to think about it like that.
Only spent $220 for the system, Nintendoland, and Zombi U which came from Amazon. That's half an Xbone and I got plenty of money to spare for more games before I hit $400. I really feel I made the right choice. This thing feels like a great compliment to my PS4 since they share the remote play thing in a sense. (I have a Vita too) and the libraries are so different.
I know I will want an Xbone for Gears one day so I don't mean to sound like a fanboy hating on it, but I had the money for one or the other right now and I let friends and GAF talk me into taking a chance on Nintendo after being away from them since the GameCube days. Feels good to be back.
