Turning off Wii U during mandatory update could break your console

We all know how annoying console updates are. Having to wait while your system downloads an update that will have no noticeable impact on your gaming (as far as you can see) can make it seem rather pointless to sit through. But there HAS to be a reason for it, or else they wouldn't be mandatory.

As is the case for Nintendo's Wii U which launched yesterday here in the United States. Along with it came a sizable day-one firmware update, weighing approximately 5GB. Now for anyone who has downloaded that amount of data, you probably know that's not a quick update – especially for those with slower internet connection speed. Impatient gamers may be tempted to simply bypass the update by restarting their console.

One such person was LA Times writer Ben Fritz who, according to GI.biz (via his Twitter), decided to unplug his console before the update finished. Big mistake. As stated by Fritz, unplugging the Wii U console before the update finishes breaks the console. It's not just him; multiple users have tweeted back at him that their console has done the exact same thing when restarting the update.

Unlike other consoles, Fritz claimed, the Wii U doesn't give you a download estimate or warn you not to do so. Honestly, though, who in this day and age of gaming doesn't realize that you shouldn't turn off your console mid-update? Still, that's no excuse for the Wii U to just stop working of it does happen.

For what it's worth, we let our update finish and the Wii U works just fine. So if you do decide to power-off mid-update and your Wii U stops working, don't say we didn't warn you.