I get the impression you have to be a lot larger to be in Apple's special club than you need to be to be a Nintendo developer - I know studios with <5 permanent

I get the impression you have to be a lot larger to be in Apple's special club than you need to be to be a Nintendo developer - I know studios with <5 permanent staff who are doing DS & Wii dev. With Apple it doesn't seem to be a matter of "pay us $X and we'll help you get your title published", it's more of a "you have to be big enough that we can even see you from our ivory tower, and only if you bend over". Don't forget Google Voice on iPhone isn't happening, and neither is Opera. Does Nintendo let you publish a game that competes directly with Mario? Yes.