Wii U Splatoon Bundle Inking Store Shelves Next Month

A new Wii U console bundle will be hitting store shelves in late May featuring Nintendo's new 4-on-4 multiplayer shooter, Splatoon, specially made for those who have been waiting to buy a Wii U until Splatoon launched... whoever they may be.

The bundle, which is going to be a Best Buy exclusive, includes the Wii U console, a download code for Splatoon, and Nintendo Land pre-installed on its hard drive for the standard Wii U price tag of $299.99. Unfortunately, the internal hard drive of the Wii U is still 32GB, so we wouldn't be surprised if Splatoon and Nintendo Land took up a majority of its space.

Nintendo did something similar with a Wii U Mario Kart console bundle, but it wasn't Best Buy exclusive. Splatoon is certainly a worthy candidate for its own console bundle, but we didn't think we'd see it until the game had some time out in the wild for new players to try it out and decide they want to own it, like during the holiday rush, and we certainly didn't expect it to be retailer-exclusive. Nintendo's trying to push a brand new IP here, so why limit where people can purchase its console bundle?

The bundle itself is a good deal with two games and the console for the normal console price, but we feel like it's missing a certain something. Perhaps a Splatoon amiibo or two could have sweetened this deal, or at the very least got the amiibo scalpers on board, but alas there's nothing of the sort included.

The Splatoon console bundle launches exclusively at Best Buy stores on the day of the game's widespread Wii U release on May 29.