With the Wii U Nintendo believes that a wide open approach to storage is best for the consumer. It allows consumers to decide how much storage they need and what kind of storage device best suits their needs. In addition, consumers can seek out the best price for their storage needs and Nintendo does not have to mark up the storage to make money on it.
The bottom line is that while Nintendo’s approach is the most flexible, we will have to see how consumers embrace it. It is unknown how Nintendo handles the storage that you plug into the Wii U and what kind of utilities they provide to back up Wii U data onto another device. While Nintendo isn’t making money on the storage, they also don’t have to deal with the issues that go along with maintaining and backing up the storage.