>>14622814
I recall it too and I just finally found it. It's an interview with Kyle Mercury who did market during the GCN/GBA era.
https://web.archive.org/web/20130819010845/http://www.notenoughshaders.com/2013/08/15/the-struggles-of-marketing-the-gamecube/
Tried to get copy paste the relevant Geist bits, though I strongly recommend to read the entire interview.
>At the time, Nintendo believed “Geist” — a first person shooter published by Nintendo — would be GameCube’s “Halo Killer”. Shigeru Miyamoto had contributed gameplay ideas to Geist including “object possession”.
>Because of Miyamoto’s minor involvement, Nintendo had strong confidence in the title, and everyone inside the meeting reassured Reggie that “Geist” would become a huge hit with the older hardcore gamers who loved “Halo”.
>“And then at the end [of the presentation], Reggie looked around the table and basically said “Look, don’t bullshit me. How do you guys really think this thing is going to hold up?” No one said a word for a minute, and then people started just spouting off more marketing lingo and faux (self) assurance. None of these people were gamers, none of these people even LIKED video games.” says Mercury.
>Everyone in the room remained quiet. Although nobody wanted to criticize Geist, Mercury knew he had to say something to Reggie.
>Mercury told Fils-Aime, “Look, I’m sorry, but it’s pretty obvious that Geist is no ‘Halo Killer’. I’m not sure it’s much of an anything killer right now, except maybe fun. If you want to talk ‘Halo Killer’, the closest things we have is Metroid Prime 2. I understand that Geist is not done yet (understatement of the year), but it really should not be a focus title, 1st party involvement or not.”
>Everyone in the room tried to rebuttal Mercury’s comments by spouting off marketing trivia and neat interesting facts about “Geist”. Reggie didn’t respond. He just sat quietly and listened to what everyone had to say.
>Mercury then made another recommendation to Fils-Aime: “The other game we should really be focusing on is Resident Evil 4. This game is going to sell consoles. Period.”
>Reggie was surprised at the idea of giving a bigger push to a third party title.
>“This was the first time I saw any kind of expression register on Reggie’s face. It was an inquisitive look, an “Oh really?” look. I couldn’t believe no one else saw this. It was a big risk on my part, actually, to force a 3rd party title in front like that, but I’d played the RE4 demo and (though admittedly an RE fan) was just blown away by it. It had to be given a spotlight of some kind. If we were going to fight the PS2 on their own turf, RE4 was the game to do it with,” says Mercury.
>Toward the end of the GameCube era, Nintendo lost confidence in their own fans. Nintendo was losing market share with each new console launched.
>“Pride turned to arrogance. Ugly arrogance. Nintendo started to develop contempt for the gaming community. They felt as if they were being betrayed by the gamers they created. The marketing teams started to look at gamer focused strategies with ire and spite.” says Mercury. “The “hardcore” Nintendo audience was equally cast aside. “Why bother? They’re going to buy anything we put out anyway.”
>I enjoyed your story about the meeting with Reggie Fils-aime where everyone talks about Geist being a “Halo Killer”. I got the impression that Reggie was surrounded by “Yes People” who only agreed or nodded politely at every idea. Was it difficult for employees to be critical of Nintendo’s policies even if the problems were quite clear? And did that negatively impact the decision making in promoting/marketing the GameCube effectively?
>It absolutely was. Again, Nintendo is a very proud company and they were facing a market shift unlike any in their history. The Marketing team had to walk a fine line of keeping the energy up, keeping people excited about the future, and implementing solutions that tried to resolve the really glaringly obvious problems of the present. Too far in either direction and you’re either seen as sadly naive or a cynical doomsayer. For me, this meant staying sincerely passionate about the brand (and I was), but being honest about the position we were in. I was fortunate to have that mix of philosophies, but a lot of people didn’t and that made for a very trying experience when it came to developing initiatives. A huge number of people refused to admit there was a problem and many of the cynics levied the blame against the consumer, rather than Nintendo’s own policies. Marketing was doing the best with what we had. We weren’t making the software, or the hardware, we were just bringing it to the people and doing what we could to keep an notoriously fickle and increasingly disenfranchised audience engaged in a time where amazing new options were everywhere.