Sony Online Entertainment has been significantly involved in the online infrastructure for the PlayStation 3, helping to create the PlayStation Store for sister firm SCE. Since then, of course, it’s been one of the most active sources of downloadable content for the PS3.

The company’s work has spanned the funding of third-party titles such as Sidhe’s Gripshift onto PS3, as well as a deal to bring retro ports of Midway arcade games to the Playstation 3.

SOE, best known for its MMOs such as EverQuest and Star Wars Galaxies, has also started self-creating original downloadable titles for the Playstation Store, too, including Cash Guns Chaos, which originally begun its development cycle as a PSP title.

Thus we caught up with SOE producer Todd Carson at a recent SOE event to talk about the firm’s upcoming PS3 downloadable title High Stakes On The Vegas Trip and its attitude to digital downloads in general.

Can you talk a little bit about the state of the SOE portfolio for the PlayStation 3 thus far?

Some of the fresh ideas that have already come out are games like Cash Guns Chaos, Gripshift - those are some of the new IPs that we have out there right now. We also have a new IP we’re bringing, High Stakes on the Vegas Strip, to the PS3.

So - High Stakes on the Vegas Strip, a poker game - how do you differentiate in that highly crowded genre, or is being downloadable enough?

Well I wouldn’t say it’s different from every other title. I mean - it’s poker, and we have a 3D environment and highly customizable characters.

In particular, we integrated video and audio into the poker game for online play - you can plug in an EyeToy and a USB headset, and see your friends online and interact with them while you’re playing.

Sidhe Interactive’s [pictured, somewhat puzzle-centric racing/driving game] Gripshift is an interesting title - it was originally a PSP game, and it was upgraded onto the PS3, right?

That’s true, [it made it to PS3] at a lower price point.

Does a game also being on the PSP make any difference to it appearing on the PlayStation 3?

No, not at all - you buy games on the PSP because it’s a mobile device, you want to take it on the run. The two consoles really are two separate entities - and while people might have both and buy [the game] on both, we didn’t see them necessarily as competing with each other.

We did upres the graphics for the PS3 version, though, because we wanted to take advantage of what was there - we put some effort into making it look really good on that console.
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