The Wii U Gamepad battery life is embarrassing, clocking in at about 3-5 hours of gameplay, which seems especially pitiful when you consider that the Wii U’s own Wii U Pro Controller gives you a staggering eighty hours of gameplay on a single charge.
To rectify the battery issue, Nintendo released a high capacity Wii U battery that doubles the estimated play time on offer. So far available only in Japan and Europe, it is now finally being sold in North America as well, via Nintendo’s online store.
The battery offers 7-9 hours of gameplay on a single charge, which is a substantial improvement from what we had before, and it fits snugly into the battery slot, meaning unlike other high capacity battery solutions, it does not mess with the form factor of the controller.
This puts the Gamepad battery life right around the same ballpark as DualShock 4 for the PS4, both of which are well under the 30 or so hours offered by the Xbox One controller and far short of the 80 hours offered by Wii U Pro.
Get it together, guys.