Wii U storage just became a little smaller (update)
A few weeks ago Nintendo announced the ability to use any external device to help expand on the Wii U storage. Today we have learned one can not play downloaded eShop games off an external device. The external device seems to be only used as a fault like device. Games can be put into external storage but must be moved back in-order to play. Those games are only tied to your system. So no taking your digital games to your friends Wii U. That 8-gig basic is looking pretty small now.
Updated; it seems like there was some miss interpretation of the Japanese. It is still unclear and not confirmed with Nintendo of one can play digital games off an external device.
July 24, 2013
I’m pretty sure i ran a game from my external HD on Wii U long time ago. The drive is integrated to the Wii U system, and acts like a internal drive on menu. I would guess that the HD is locked to the system it was formatted on, so there is no reason to not be able to run from HD anyway.