I suspect that Nintendo has expanded their R&D teams which focus on HCI and given many teams free reign to come up with ideas and demos for different user interfaces to try and come up with new ways to interact with videogames ... If these teams can come up with something inexpensive enough that it can be bundled with a game, and if there is "enough to it" that it has 4 or 5 demos which can be turned into all or part of a game, I think Nintendo is willing to do market research and hint at a possible release to see if there is any interest; and if there is to release it.
It is (essentially) a form of pure research that is maintained within a company, and even if most of the ideas don't work out what a company learns from their failures can make the far more successful in the future.
