It’s not secret Sony doesn’t yet have the same market penetration as the 360. So as a developer looking at ones options, Sony’s Bluray+Cell monster isn’t quite the most attractive choice yet. And what we consider a Live Arcade title as far as complexity, is a retail game on the Wii or DS.

There’s a number of technical reasons why cross developing for Wii and DS is a headache (memory, ridiculously different polygon limits, gba graphics hardware, interfaces, …). But the PSP is to the PS3 what on board video is to a modern NVidia or ATI card. It’s usable. You’ll have to lower details everywhere to fit within your 2MB+32MB restrictions, but there’s enough commonalities you can safely cross develop.

And it’s already happening.

Lemmings, the classic Psygnosis game. Available in both the PS3 marketplace, and for the PSP.

Grip Shift, a great stunt racing game. Available in both the PS3 marketplace, and for the PSP. Oh by the way, #1 baby!

Of course, without NPD numbers, I have no clue if this strategy has worked for the above games. For that matter, I’m not even sure budget PSP games sell well (Platypus?). I found GripShift in the equivalent of the bargain bin at a grocery store for $15, and have the sneaky suspicion it hit the market as a PSP game long before the PS3 marketplace.

Technically speaking, if you’re coding with the PSP in mind, then porting or cross developing for the PS3 should be straight forward (compared to Wii + DS). In theory, a 3GHz PPC should be able to handle the workload of a 200-333mhz MIPS. . The SPE’s can go have a nap, or go do some supercomputer crap like Seti@Home or whatever.

You still have your standard issues of developer + publisher + royalties relationship to consider for the PSP side. But what makes this interesting is that you can have an alternate revenue source for your game. And if you self fund, there’s more power to you as far as royalties. So as long as you’re not silly enough to still be playing the revolutionary graphics game, you can pull a Lemmings.

One of the more unfortunate aspects for developers going downloadable is the lack of boxed game, to mount and show off. I know, it’s a novelty, but there’s something really positive about holding the CD, box or cart in your hand. Microsoft has code cards where you pull a tab back, and enter it in to redemption box in the marketplace. The only problem is I’ve only seen these included with the Arcade Joystick (it’s crap, don’t buy it). As well, they have Live Arcade game compilations every so often, but with the marketplace filling up, your chances of making the next compilation are becoming slimmer and slimmer. Going PS3+PSP gets you something.

So is that a selling feature to go Sony? Perhaps, perhaps not.

I’m just rambling.