I've always thought that the grab for indies on Nintendo's part was to fill obvious gaps in their release schedules.

Sony seemingly doing the same for the Vita owners, keep current owners sated with a flush of indies making up for the lack in retail titles. Still, as shown with the Vita, won't make a crap difference sales-wise. They are better off releasing more Virtual Console titles.

Nintendo's classic library fully realized and with off TV can be a selling point. Indies are available everywhere else, and doesn't really help sales.

(Ah and Kowen's back. Guess that 180 finally brought him back out)

Honestly, its just the big hitting games that are missing from the system at this point. A steady of flow of big brand Nintendo games needs to be seen very soon, there has been a huge game drought on the Wii U since christmas (at least in the UK) with huge delays seen on the titles which everyone is waiting for.

The only thing Nintendo can do do boost sales is either a small price cut or bundles (which i dont think will happen) or really push for some solid first party releases with no more delays.

While Nintendo’s website lists 108 games as available for the Wii U in the U.S., there are 1,023 for the Wii.

This is a pointless statement, I'll let them figure out why.

Course it won't. Article headline is misleading anyhow. Nintendo isn't going to start making app games all of sudden. (Though some titles I can see them working better under this model)

They want to get iOS games ported over because hey why the heck not? They're 3rd party too.

Virtual Console on the other hand....is a bit different. Emulation isn't perfect (nor for everyone) and Nintendo's classic libraries are unmatched. Honestly they should use more resources towards that. iOS games are available everywhere else. If they can make Virtual Console the perfect Nintendo retro collection, now that's something worth buying. Heck people bought Nintendo 3DS's to play Ocarina of Time for the 1st time. Do the same for the rest of your classics. (By which I mean release them not remake them)

There are people willing to sell out $$ for an entire WiiU console just to get a chance to play Earthbound legally later this year without any "enhancements" that's some crazy stuff they just sitting on yo.

(As we speak FFVI and Secret of Mana got released in Japan for VC. GAWD NINTENDO WHY?)

They arent gonna let that 3DS 2011 mistake go are they? Happened 2 years ago and its the best selling system in all territories now, get over it

The Appstore model isn't going to work for them, its based on far more devices that are far more accesible to people.. its great succes is that they have consumers choosing for it, unlike people with an Android phone.. just look at the charts.. even google can't copy the Appstore model..  there are more android devices out there but people don't buy as many apps as iOS users... I don't think Nintendo is going to get people to buy the WiiU for this..

Making the Wii U more open to indie developers doesn't mean it will get a bunch of ports of smartphone games. It means it will get games like Shovel Knight. If that's the end result, the Unity partnership is a great deal.