Pre-owned Wii U consoles can access former owner’s downloads – report

Claims are circulating that pre-owned Wii U consoles are able to access digital content purchased by the machine’s previous owner.

Eurogamer reports that even machines whose hard drives have been wiped and accounts removed are still susceptible to the loophole.

Speculation suggests that the problems stems from the fact that the licenses for digital games are tied to an individual console rather a user’s account. This is why any user of a Wii U is able to access content downloaded by another user on the same machine.

Retail could theoretically use this to sell pre-owned consoles loaded with digital content.

Nintendo of America has confirmed that it is able to transfer Wii U licenses from one machine to another (which is vital should an owner’s machine break and need to be replaced) but there’s no word yet on such a service being rolled out into other territories.