From: http://www.fatbabies.com/story_mar-apr01.html

Here's a quote from April 2001, supposedly from a disgruntled Retro employee who was unhappy about working 60 hour weeks:

"Metroid looks alright, but it ain't nuthin to write home about, so we'll see. As far as the art talent that is here, it's not as great as others would lead you to believe. It's mediocre at its best."

And that game went on win like a million awards.

Further down on the page, there's a scan of letter that Nintendo sent to retailers in early 2001 asking them to take down advertisements for XBox. The story also mentioned that Sony took a different approach - hiring saboteurs to rip up XBox displays.

Well, Nintendo's argument was:

1. The 2000 Christmas retail season didn't make projection
2. There's like 8 months until the next holiday sales season
3. You have up ads that encourage people to save their money for THE NEXT BIG THING, even though there's no street date and no guarantee the product will even come out
4. Instead of promoting a future console from a company that currently has 0% market share in the console gaming industry, why not work with the current console makers to boost current sales and recoup the losses you took last quarter

It's a reasonable argument, but ultimately meaningless. M$ probably paid retailers millions to put up those ads in all their stores and create hype for the XBox.