Because if all the Rev is is something that seems like more of the same, then it'll perform as poorly as the Gamecube.
Call of Duty 2 screenshots would look the same on ALL consoles plus the PC. The Gamecube consistently sold the least of all versions when there was an identical third party port across the PS2, XBox, and GC. If Nintendo wants to be able to stand out and no longer be relegated to an "also ran" they need to show what's so darned special about the revolution other than the fact that it's got the Nintendo brand on it.
Sure, release in-dev non-ready screenshots now against polished XBox 360 games or PS3 gameplay videos and see them be overly picked apart and ultimately turned into a negative thing by Internet Fanboys and just plain ignored by everyone else, unless Gamestop employees take them as proof positive that they can mouth off to every customer that the Rev is underpowered.
OR you can save everything until it can actually be seen as a package, alongside the real reason you're buying games: not the screenshots but the controller: the experience of playing the game. Then, and only then, can the Revolution prove to not just you and me, but also casual joe who wandered into a Gamestop, that it's really something worth considering more than they considered the also-ran Gamecube.
ESPECIALLY with the concerns about the Rev's possibly being underpowered, Nintendo shouldn't rush to release screenshots because of the plain fact that Nintendo games do their polished graphics LAST. Don't forget that Nintendo builds games from the gameplay up, that all they have in the beginning are tech demos, and that they prototype the game design BEFORE they start throwing money at the art department. Nintendo, the company who's the furthest along in terms of gameplay development, is also the company LEAST LIKELY to have public-suitable cleaned up and prettied-up screenshots. Third parties, who've been working on GC kits until recently ALSO shouldn't be showing their screenshots because of the very nature that they've been using GAMECUBE HARDWARE to do their preliminary development.
If Nintendo rushed to release screenshots before they're ready, then you'd either see graphically under-whelming gameplay demos (as opposed to the gameplay-underwhelming million-rubber-duckies that Sony likes), OR Gamecube-era third party games. Is a marketting blunder of that magnitude really what you want Ian?
Or do you want Nintendo to pull a Microsoft and photoshop their screenshots liberally? Or do you want them to show us FMVs like Zelda SpaceWorld 2001 which apparently were NOT based on any gameplay AT ALL?
If you really want screenshots for the sake of seeing screenshots, then that's perfectly fine. But if you think that the public really needs to see Gamecube-developed screenshots of Madden to compare against X360 Madden, or Nintendo wacky 100-poly-link fighting 100-poly skeleton tech demos, then I question whether you've thought this entire situation out in terms of how Nintendo's marketting situation comes out of this.
~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com