I’m no stranger to the art of shipping in my Nintendo hardware for repair. I sent in my launch Wii once to correct that dual-layer disc problem that reared its head after Smash Bros. Brawl released, and then again several years later when every internal component decided to melt down simultaneously. And then there was my launch 3DS, whose right shoulder button just stopped working during a critical moment of Resident Evil: Revelations (convenient!). None of these fixes were very inconvenient—even my Wii’s resurrection, far outside of warranty, wasn’t that expensive. But all of these things happened long after the system’s initial release. I’ve never opened up a new Nintendo console or handheld with broken parts… until now.

If you’ve been following Twitter (and who doesn’t?), you might have heard stories of broken systems, hard locks, inconsistent controller syncing, and other fun problems. As for me, the Wii U hard locked during the Wii to Wii U data transfer, causing an immediate coronary. If the transfer didn’t “take” or was interrupted after only half the data was copied over, would that be all she wrote? I had to unplug the system, wait 10 seconds, and plug it back in. When I went back to the Wii Menu, it recognized that the process stalled halfway through, and basically finished by itself. Still, it took my heart a few minutes to stop beating quite so fast. Fellow staffer Jonny Metts really got the short end of the stick: his Wii U didn’t put out video. Period. Unfortunately, hard locks are apparently not uncommon on the Wii U, as my colleagues, and you readers, have reported.

As if I didn’t have any more reasons to hate on Nintendo Land, that game’s day one patch seems to have caused the Wii U some stress. Nintendo Land now randomly locks up your Wii U. I have only experienced this during multiplayer matches, but it’s pretty bad when it happens. Just yesterday, a friend and I were playing Mario Chase when the system decided to hard lock. After doing the usual unplug/plug-in dance, I restarted Nintendo Land and went to a different multiplayer game. The system immediately hard locked again before the game even began. You know what games don’t hard lock the system? Every other game I own—Darksiders II, Trine 2, Mighty Switch Force HD, and Nano Assault Neo. Screw you, Nintendo Land!

Then there’s the problem with my GamePad.

I didn’t notice this issue until I booted up Nintendo Land for the first time, just to see what it looked like and to play that Donkey Kong game that Mike Sklens is so rabid about. While you’re wandering around the main “plaza,” you’re supposed to press ZR to jump. When I pressed ZR, nothing happened. When I held ZR down and really applied pressure, my character hopped. After a little bit of scrutiny, I noticed that my ZR button was inset compared its corresponding ZL button, and while the ZL button had a definite click, the ZR button did not. I figured I could live with this because lord knows I wasn’t going to play much Nintendo Land, but it turns out the ZR button plays an important role in Darksiders II, Trine 2, and Nano Assault, thus forcing me to call Nintendo about a repair. I’m always pleasantly surprised by their customer service.

I sent my GamePad off on this Tuesday, and I should have it back by early next week.

Anyway, these problems are annoying, and suggest that Nintendo didn’t QA/QC the Wii U properly before tossing it on the production line and issuing patches on top of patches. It’s a bizarre misstep from a company whose hardware is usually first-rate in the reliability category, especially compared to its competitors. I imagine these are ultimately OS issues. But despite them, I remain optimistic; all of this will be ironed out, patches will be patched, and my GamePad will come back fully functional.

“So much for our first tour. Two no-shows and one sick Triceratops.”

“It could’ve been worse, John. A lot worse.”

During the first week after launch, Miiverse was down quite a bit. It was annoying, sure, but nothing heartbreaking. After trying unsuccessfully to get to my messages on Miiverse, I posted an irritated Facebook comment, something like “Miiverse is down again, curses!” This was a mistake. An old friend who hadn’t talked to me face to face in over a decade leapt on this display of vulnerability with a sarcastic comment: “Soooooo, still happy you got a Wii U?” This is a kid who is an ardent Xbox 360 supporter, loves Halo, and wrote a page-long memo to why he didn’t like Nintendo (generally) but wasn’t able to post it on one of my previous status updates because Facebook experienced an untimely error. And this had just been a post saying I was excited for the Wii U’s release. A page-long rebuttal of my enthusiasm says a lot more about him than it does me.

But the point is clear: Miiverse was down for 15 minutes, so the Wii U is a failure, and I wasted my money.

And he’s right. I mean, let’s face it; the Xbox 360 had an inspiring, flawless launch. My friend Erik’s brand-new launch system certainly didn’t crash the second he plugged it in and then red-ringed a few months later. In fact, NONE of my friends experienced the Red Ring of Death, which itself is probably just a conspiracy perpetuated by the lamestream, pro-Nintendo media. Game Informer must have been making up that 54 percent Xbox 360 failure statistic based on reader feedback! And you know what? Xbox Live, which is basically Microsoft’s version of Miiverse, is a shining example of exactly how a communal online service is supposed to function. It has never gone down—certainly not for an extended period of time—or been hacked. It’s completely free, and the communities it inspires are filled with reasonable, enthusiastic people who are respectful and sincere. The derogatory term “Mexican Jew lizard” has never been uttered on Xbox Live.

As if you couldn’t tell, that comment really ground my gears, not just because it conveys a deep-seated sense of snarky superiority, but because it demonstrates a blatantly hypocritical standard. Microsoft wishes the Xbox 360 launch were running as smoothly as the Wii U launch. The few hard locks I have experienced are not the same as a complete system failure. There is no Red Ring of Death, Blue Screen of Death, or Yellow Light of Death. Not yet, anyway. By this time in the Xbox 360’s launch window, thousands of systems had gone belly-up. Instead, the Miiverse has gone down a few times and systems are hard locking in certain situations. I don’t remember the PS3 going through a rough launch other than the fact that nobody bought it because doing so would force people to take out a second mortgage.

Of course, six year hence, the bugs have been cleared out of both the Xbox 360 and the PS3, so it’s easy to forget a time when Xbox 360’s were cliff diving like lemmings, or PS3’s were playing solitaire on store shelves while they waited for an owner that never came. So yes, the Wii U’s launch is experiencing some minor technical difficulties, but the T. Rex hasn’t eaten the lawyer and Nedry didn’t turn off the raptor fences. We will get through this, it’s not that bad, and you can still play NSMBU with a Wii Remote.