Does anyone remember Metal Gear Solid 2? There were a ton of screen shots and videos showing Snake fighting in the Plant Chapter... of course, he was just a placeholder for Raiden to keep that a secret.

Another good example.

According to planetgamecube.com (a VERY reputable news site), those screens you see there have 'filler' textures that are actually from Mario 64, and they're only there until they put in the final textures before the release of the game.

This is mentioned above. I believe they are trying to say that it's an indication that the game will not be ready on time. My point is that the placeholders don't dictate that. I then putforth that it may be in place to protect or hide something. They then asked for examples of this happening, I did. And that's that.

I am really looking forward to this game. The only reason I really want a game cube is for the new Resident Evil games and nintendos excellent in house games. Mario 64 was one of my favorite games ever. Playing it really used to suck me in you know. The only thing I am afraid of is that little water pack thing. Even though Myamoto always tries to strive to make things different and same at the same time, I really hope that he gets the "same" part of it with it. That little water cannon thing kind of scares me because I really liked the simplicity of the past games and am really just looking forward to new adventures with the same great gameplay. I hope we get the fireball again too hehe. In any case, I am sure this game will rock!

In the Starfox example, part of the game simply wasn't shown. For MGS2, a character that was already part of the game and therefore obviously looked like he belonged was substituted for pretty-boy Raiden. Neither of these show a company using outdated material to cloak the game in secrecy. And neither do they show the developer "protecting" its IP from the competition, though the latter did succeed in tricking and/or pissing off the consumer.

My examples were not just to show examples of using "outdated" materials. They were to show Nintendo protecting its ideas. If you follow what I said earlier I said that Nintendo may be using old textures to protect a certain aspect of the gameplay, Nintendo's IP. The key here is to link the entire discussion, not just work off of one post in the thread, I do not think I need to to repeat everything.

Regardless, you fail to address the Eternal Darkness example.

That example clearly shows Nintendo using dated material, and even falsly created material to protect aspects of the game. If you doubt Nintendo's intention I suggest reading up about the game.

My bad. Creating extra material for demos is nothing new, it is a great way to keep from spoiling the experience for the user. And any "dated material" used it surely because of the fact that it started life as an N64 game. In fact, the game still looks dated at times. Can you link to a story that says Nintendo did any of this to protect the game from anyone but the press and fans?