More control. Just like how only certain companies can make games for consoles.
Well, sort of. It's only done that way in the video game industry because Nintendo didn't want Atari to make games for their systems (because Atari was doing their own versions of games that Nintendo was releasing in house, like Tetris - hence, Tengen Tetris for NES is worth a small fortune) - so they started the whole "officially licensed" thing and required game manufacturers to pay for a license/dev kit to be able to make games for their systems. I think the court case between Atari and Nintendo that went on for 8 or 9 years ended with Nintendo agreeing to let Atari become a licensed third party (though I don't think they ever did release an officially licensed game for any Nintendo system until Atari's name was essentially purchased by a different game company - the 3-DO guy maybe - too long ago - so even then, Atari game in name only) and Atari agreeing to pay whatever royalties you have to pay as a licensed game company.
Because Nintendo did what they did in 1985, Sega, NEC, Atari themselves (in a hilarious bit of irony - though the Jaguar fiasco was post lawsuit I think) and of course Sony and now Microsoft adopted the same policy. That doesn't mean that unofficial homebrew games can't be created/sold - but your market is going to be miniscule (I had some awful Wisdom Tree Bible game for the NES when I was little - it sucked and almost broke my system, but other than Tengen Baseball, it's the only unofficial commercial game I've ever had) and most retailers won't carry you. That's completely different from the PC gaming world where anyone can make a game. Of course, when you are talking about a system that is designed to run each and every game without hassle (unlike a PC that can have any number of configurations), the argument for quality control can be and should be made - bringing me to my point...
while I agree that the PC (and I mean PC in the global sense - not just Windows - Mac too) is what it is because of the structure that allows anyone to develop for any platform, when you have a device like a video game console, an iPod or an iPhone - having a process by which you can require company's to be licensed before the software/game is officially endorsed makes 100% sense. There is an expectation with a video game (and that's the model that it would make sense for iPhone to adopt because the hardware and OS are standardized the same way a video game system is standardized) that it will just work - the consumer doesn't have to deal with buggy software loader issue or sound problems or freeze-ups. The game should just play. To ensure that that can happen, Apple has to keep some sort of control over what commercial apps can be released for their platform, or at least - released with their approval that it will work.
That doesn't mean homebrew apps and open source stuff can't continue to come along and work great - but the average consumer isn't going to want to bother with having to hack their iPhone to play a game - they want to download it and have it work.
Still, this is good, if not unexpected news. I have a friend who works for the mobile division at EA - I'll try to get her to give me any word on anything they are preparing.
