I think there's a thing that has been left out of the equation here, and that's the AppStore itself.
My understanding is that Apple is offering the devs an extraordinary amount of freedom: you get the SDK for free, you can decide your pricing as you see fit (you can even give your program away for free, great for demos and stuff), and you get 70% of the price yourself. Also, from what I've read, they don't want to control the contents, other than that there's nothing illegal in there. So, I see this as a huge step in Apple's part to get 3rd parties on board, even moreso than for example WiiWare. Remember, AppStore is THE way to get apps on your device, and it's going to be (at least I believe so) as easy as bying music. So, Apple might really revolutionize online game distribution, at least for handhelds.
