In terms of numbers, i suppose so. But in terms of the people that post here, i think the interest is indeed minor. This thread would be inflamed by now if not for that, i think.

They did do it with pokemon, it's called pokemon rumble u.  Trash game from the looks of it. 

I also agree.  The Wii U gamepad has built-in NFC, so they could do it without an external portal.  It's as if they think Pokemon already earns enough money, and they don't want any more...

Nintendo works with their 2nd Party Western developers at least. Of course Nintendo has to look over it but I believe they are equallly working on the games together and not one side having more say than the other.

Here's a link that talks about it:

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/10/working_with_western_developers_is_all_about_trust_says_miyamoto

And again, Next Level Games didn't become Nintendo's 2nd party until after they finish making Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon.

I willl admit Nintendo does not work with a lot of western developers though. If that was your point all along then my bad.

I don't see how it would have made much of a difference. All three Skylanders games have sold best on Wii, anyway. It's possible the deal only would have ensured exclusivity for the first game, too.

Wow.  I never even heard of that game.  It is digital only, so that explains why I never seen it in stores.  And it seems the characters are exclusive to GameStop, but I don't think I have ever seen them in any store.  I guess marketing for this game was an afterthought.

Nintendo likely didn't want to potentially upset Disney as they have a similar-ish toy game and then you also have the eventual Nintendo game that has been rumored for awhile now.

I still don't see why they don't work a new pokemon game that uses a special edition of the cards to create a new game element.

Have you played skylanders? It's basically a dungeon crawler rpg like diablo except each other toy is a different class bought as dlc. I've finished all 3 console games co-op with my other half and we absolutely loved um all. The main npc of the game Flynn is voiced by patrick warburton too, as in Joe from Family guy, main villain voiced by the guy who voiced Invader Zim, some other great voice actors worked on it like George Takai voices the main villains robot in the 2nd game and he "Takais" the hell out of the role.... Kevin Sorbo even voices one of the individual toys, as in Hercules voices 1 of the 159 different skylanders.

Sure they're colourful and bright for kids but there are some really good parts to skylanders, I seriously wouldnt' knock it til you tried, there are 2 boss fights which come to mind in those games which really had me tip the hat in terms of fantastic ideas for fights too, to the memorable lvls of Spinderella from Dynamite Headdy.

a kids game that generated over a billion dollars. 

PS360 has another 60 million in total userbase though compared to the Wii. PS4+XOne have WiiU outmatched by a 2:1 in hardware, yet WiiU outsells both next gen platforms combined on the Skylanders game by nearly a 2:1 margin.

Most relevant point of comparison may be the Lego games. The lead-selling platform changes a bit here and there, but the games are primarily geared towards children.