Where are you finding cheap WiiUs? I've wanted to pick one up for a while and find them to be exorbitantly expensive, especially the controllers.

The gamepads often cost more than the console itself, because they're region locked and you can't use the console without one.

There is an attempt to clone the functionality of the gamepad ongoing that's somewhat usable: https://github.com/vanilla-wiiu/vanilla

I saw console-only Wii Us in Book Off in Japan for ~US$30.