Nintendo of Japan will be offering standalone Gamepads for the hefty price of 13,440 yen (£107/$172) in the region, but Nintendo of America has said that doing so in US 'might cause retail confusion' since there are currently no announced games which support a second Gamepad controller, so standalone Gamepads will not be offered.
So when will dual-Gamepad-compatible games arrive? "The launch window is all going to be single-GamePad. The dual-GamePad functionality, we expect to start seeing that in games sometime next year," Trinen told 1Up.

"Our feeling is, we're not going to sell another GamePad if you don't have something to use it with. We'll make that available as an additional accessory when there's content to support it," he added.

Until then, all offline multiplayer experiences will be handled with a combination of a single Gamepad and numerous Wii Remotes, as seen with games such as Nintendo Land.