The Pros and Cons of Nintendo's E3 2012 Conference

In our humble opinion, we were a bit disappointed with this year's Nintendo conference. Sure, there's a huge line of titles available, which nicely touched on the software-side of things. Unfortunately, many burning questions are still left unanswered, most of which are crucial to the consumer. Considering the Wii U is only months away, Nintendo had a responsibility to reveal a little more than just: "Oh, look, we have some games and colored consoles."

As a company, Nintendo played with fire on this one. E3 typically helps drive sales, as developers and companies use this opportunity to hype their software and hardware lineup to the max. That being said, we think Nintendo missed out on a golden opportunity.

Some crucial questions include:

- Is the MiiVerse the console's default Home screen? If not, how will each section be presented to the end-user? The interface, believe it or not, is a big factor that helps many decide whether or not to bother with a console. As it stands, the Miiverse looks rather clunky and a tad unfriendly.

- How come Nintendo never bothered to update the Miis appearance? The Xbox 360 contains Avatars, which users can fully customize by adding an incredible amount of detail and personality. Instead of getting with the times, Nintendo will once again deliver shitty-looking Miis that didn't look good in 2006 in the first place.

- More hardware specs, anyone?  While not everyone cares about the console's graphical capabilities, supporting a high-speed processor and HD graphics is important. To give a brief example, the original Wii missed out on many critically-acclaimed titles due to a lack of CPU/GPU power. More specifically, the Unreal Engine is amongst the most popular on the gaming market. If the Wii U cannot support the new Unreal Engine 4 (as the Wii couldn't support UE3) then they will once again miss out on many great offerings.

- Will video content services be available at launch? How will each one work?

- Can you provide more solid information concerning storage?

- How will online interaction work? While Friend Codes will no longer be available, how solid will the multiplayer area be? As it stands, the Xbox 360 has one of the most robust and rich online interfaces available on any console. How will Nintendo counter attack?

- How much will it cost? Considering the console is only months away, it is hard to believe that the big execs are still pondering on the price tag.

Seriously?