Comes with a 1-3 week delivery wait in the UK
The 3DS - particularly the standard model - and the Wii U GamePad have something in common: a blinking red light of doom. Nintendo's efforts to maintain manageable prices leads to various compromises, which is common with much technology, and battery life is a common theme of complaint for gamers. Whichever you're playing, it's worth being near a power supply or splashing out on alternative batteries if you're gearing up for long playing sessions.
Of course there are third-party alternatives, but Nintendo has - as promised - released an official and meatier battery in Europe, which reportedly allows up to eight hours of playtime. It's available now on Amazon (£24.99 in the UK and €35.89 in Germany); British gamers have a 1-3 week wait for delivery, while customers in Germany, for example, have 3-4 days to wait before it's available for despatch. Nintendo is listed as the distributor, and with wait times like that may be ordering stock depending on demand. The previously announced Remote Rapid Charging Set is also available to order.
Thankfully Nintendo made it easy to get into the GamePad itself to change the battery, unlike the bad old days of odd proprietary casing on consoles such as the Nintendo 64 - nothing that a screwdriver, a hammer and a lot of violence couldn't solve. We assume this official GamePad battery will come to North America, but it's not available yet.
If you're in Europe, are you tempted to pick one of these up?