A long while ago we made the argument here that both Sony and Nintendo weren’t exactly “indie friendly”. I mean, sure, both had indie games on their home consoles, but neither offered a stripped down, no-fuss channel like the Xbox 360 did. While I may have caught some flack over the original article, I stand by my argument that neither Sony, or Nintendo were as indie friendly as Microsoft. Note the word “were”…

As of today, you can now download the PS3′s newest firmware update 3.15 which now allows for the playing of Playstation Minis on the PS3, something that used to be for the PSP system only. Now let’s put this into a bit of perspective. The PSP Minis system wasn’t originally planned to be used for indie games and developers explicitly, but rather for games that were similar or direct ports of iPhone games. Games that would be cheap and accessible by just about anybody. However, it’s fast becoming an avenue for developers who would not otherwise be able to develop for the traditional Playstation Store.

Using the Mini system Sony is able to provide many burgeoning developers with the tools needed to create a great game. While the $1500 dev kit may still seem like a lot of money it’s a lot better than what traditional gaming dev kits used to cost. That lower barrier of entry automatically makes the Mini system a bit more appealing. But wait there’s more! (RIP Billy Mays)

By Sony’s own word in an interview with Develop-Online, Sony promised that they were running a “QA cycle” on many of the Mini games. This means that, while some companies must hire many testers who can actually be pretty pricey, Sony is doing much of the grunt work for these deves who can’t possibly afford such a thing. This means the quality of the games you’ll find in the Mini section of your PSP/PS3 will undoubtedly be a bit higher than that of the Xbox Live Indie Games area, which has it’s own unique, but otherwise not as thorough, QA testing.

Of course there are still holes in Sony’s plan, some unanswered questions that would make this new update a true indie games platform for Sony’s home console. First and foremost, I’d suppose, would be whether or not developers can program just for the PS3 Mini system or whether they have to develop it for the PSP Mini and then port the game over to the PS3. From the looks of it, it would appear that any current PSP Mini is  simply able to be downloaded onto the PS3 for play on that system as well. Which would place development of Minis solely for the PS3 out of the picture, however, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Sony could easily initiate a patch in the near future which would allow for such a thing, or maybe it’s possible now and just nobody is talking about it. I can’t really say…

So is this new development Sony’s true answer to the XBLIG channel on the 360? Probably not. If anything I’d say it’s half of their answer. Certainly getting these smaller, bite-sized games onto their home console was a step in the right direction, but there’s still more work to be done. I’d would say that it is definitely a meaningful step in the right direction for Sony if they are truly looking at getting into the indie space along with Microsoft.

This is, of course, in no way stating that the Xbox Live Indie Games channel is perfect for indie gaming as well. There are still many problems that the channel must overcome, especially in concerns for effective marketing, however, when Microsoft initially launched the channel as “Community Games” they said they were out to be the “YouTube of game development.”  While that lofty goal probably hasn’t been met just yet, they are certainly the closest with 644 games on the service right now. For reference sake, there are currently only 265 XBLA games and that’s on a service that’s been out for four years now.

As for Nintendo, well they are still humming along with their WiiWare service with no plans to open up the service a bit more. In terms of community features like this Nintendo is usually the last one on board (see online multiplayer) so I wouldn’t start getting your hopes up for anything from them that really promotes indie development from hobbyists, like with XBLIG.