Towards the end of January, Nintendo promised us a couple of system updates would be making their way to the Wii U console - one coming in the spring, and one in summer. Supposed to make software launching and general menu loading on the console a whole lot faster (something which is much needed, given the huge delays when trying to switch from program to program at the moment), as well as adding a whole host of extra MiiVerse features, you can imagine our surprise when we turned on our consoles this afternoon to find a system update pending - after all, temperatures are only just starting to come out of single digits, and it's not like Nintendo to be early to the party with things like this.
But alas, it doesn't seem like this is the system update we were looking for, but merely an update to prepare for an update. A 30MB download, which took us barely four minutes to complete, the update brings your system up to version 2.1.3 E and simply contains "overall improvements to system stability" according to Nintendo. So there you go.
In the absence of any useful pictures, here's a cat in sunglasses with a cabbage leaf on his head.
The update is currently being pushed out to Wii U consoles all over the globe - although don't worry if your console doesn't seem to have had it yet, as Nintendo being Nintendo, they don't make it very obvious - it'll usually start downloading automatically in the background, but we found we needed to head into the eShop before it prompted us to begin the download. If that doesn't work, it always possible to start the download manually - all you have to do is head into System Settings on the Home Menu, click on the second icon from the right (the pink picture of a Wii U with an arrow) and click the big button marked System Update to manually search and update. To check on the update's progress, you can simply poke the Home button on the bottom of the Wii U GamePad, and tap the furthest to the right icon labelled Download Management to bring up a list of anything that's currently downloading.
As for the fabled spring/summer updates, we're hoping the first of the pair should be due any day now - after all we are officially in spring now. Besides speeding things up and adding a few new MiiVerse features, Nintendo were intentionally vague about what's coming and when - so hopefully they'll clear things up a bit in the coming weeks. Or perhaps they'll just send it out with no fanfare at all and wait for us all to notice. They like keeping us all excited like that.
