Power Pack for Wii U Improves GamePad Battery Life

Put a little more power into your Wii U Gamepad with this excellent accessory from Nyko.

Wii U PowerPak image 1

One well-documented negative of the Nintendo Wii U’s GamePad is that it doesn’t hold an ample charge. Nintendo says it’s new fangled tablet controller’s battery roughly lasts between 3-to-5 hours, but most anecdotal reports pin it around the former at best, which sucks rocks for any gaming session that lasts more that.

If you want to play the “blame game” (pre-order now at your local GameStop!) as for why this is, perhaps it might have to do with the particular battery Nintendo decided to ship with every console. Upon closer inspection, if you were to remove the back panel of the gamepad, you’d be alarmed to find out that the battery inside is super shrimpy.

Look at how small it is! Look at it!

Wii U stock battery image

Typical “Scrooge McDuck” Nintendo passing the buck along to its customers instead of spending a few extra dollars for a bigger battery (although, I’m sure another logical explanation could be that a more sizable one would’ve added unnecessary weight.) Thankfully, in that regard gaming-accessory maker Nyko has a reasonably priced solution.

Simply called the Power Pak for Wii and priced at $24.99 USD, Nyko promises that their battery provides three-times – I repeat – three-times the normal capacity of Nintendo’s. And if my Google math is correct and they’re to believed, that totals up to about 9-to-15 hours. Darn impressive, indeed.

Nintendo Wii U GamePad white image

The installation is quite straight forward, too: unscrew the back panel of the Wii U GamePad, switch batteries (the Nyko one is reportedly larger), replace cover, and tada… now you’re playing with power! Even neater, no proprietary cables to use; the stock AC adaptor or Charging Cradle that comes with the Wii U is good enough.

Follow the link I provided above to find out where you can buy the Power Pak for Wii U at via Nyko’s website. Oh, and do us a solid by coming back to check out all the rad geeky news we’ve got today – a Toshiba smartwatch and Microsoft’s IllumiRoom – right here on Walyou.