Smart move from Ninty! Was about time.
You are two years behind bro. They've done update checks since the Wii U was released.
Once again, they didn't pull this bullshit off on the Wii, well they did, but people quickly circumvented it. This however, will be quite trick, but until 5.1.1 can be safely updated to, the eShop can just suck lemons.
O well lets hope WiiUKey is real then
I can't remember, but did someone say that the Wii U uses eMMC NAND? If so perhaps, we could dump the NAND using an SD adapter and SD Reader, much like the 3DS? This could potentially allow us to update the Wii U and when HomeBrew comes, we then could downgrade by flashing the dump back to the Wii U.
When the Wii U first came out, you were required to update to use online stuff. I had to update mine for that reason. This isn't a new thing with 5.1.1. Nor with consoles in general. It existed on the Wii as well as other consoles. It's also not bullshit. There is a very good reason behind it. It keeps people from cheating online.I mean buy some systems at the store, those will be on a lower firmware....
Unless Nintendo has figured out a way of updating the firmware on unopened and unpowered systems.