Of course it's what gamers want, but what business incentive does it give 3rd parties, that's the question in OP.

I think Sony's doing it more to spur Vita sales than anything else. You buy a game for your PS3, and you automatically own a Vita version of it. Eventually, some people will think, 'Hey, I may as well buy a Vita so I can play all these awesome games on the go at no extra charge.'

However, third parties stand to benefit from this, too. If porting from PS3 to Vita is as simple as it seems, they can make one game for both systems and the consumer won't be undecided as to which one to buy. If the consumer is confident, they are more likely to make a purchase, which is the 'bottom line', so to speak, for a publisher.

Pretty much my thoughts.  Lost sales should be very low.  Most people simply aren't going to purchase a game twice.  They might agonize over which system to buy a game for, but there will likely be only be one sale.  On the other hand, for people who own both a Vita and a PS3, cross-play might encourage them to buy a game they might have passed on otherwise.  I think the result would be a net gain in sales.

Also, if I remember correctly, unless you want to add enhanced controls, a game that plays on the PS3 will play on the Vita with very little effort.  If that's the case, then there will be minimal overhead in terms of cost.

This can only be a good thing for the industry and for publishers, as it has the potential to move hardware, which in turn means higher software sales across the board.  I hope it becomes a trend.

CoD Vita is doomed?

There could be a variety of incentives.

1. Cross play. Originally cross play would be an incentive to consumers to purchase both versions of the game, but that has proven itself not to be effective. With Cross buy, cross play becomes a viable feature that may attract consumers to purchase cross buy games.

2. Trophies. As much as it doesn't matter, there are those who throw massive amounts of time and money towards them. Buying and playing games that they don't like just for the trophies. Buy one game get two means buy one game get two trophy sets, some being retroactive even, will attract some people when they are deciding what to buy.

3. Selling more games will sell more games. The more people to buy your game, the bigger your fan base will become which will result in better sales. If something like cross buy increases sales for that game then other games that aren't cross buy but are in the same series or made by the same developers will hopefully sell more as a results. Basically anything helps.

4. Two games. Gamers like games and often have friends and family. With cross buy you can play the same game at the same time. Great for single player games and great for multiplayer games thanks to cross platform multiplayer. No need for split screen, no need for a second controller, no need to share.

5. Increases the PlayStation ecosystem. Vita is having a hard time selling and a free game with a purchase of a PS3 game is a nice incentive for a PS3 owner to get a Vita. If the Vita starts to sell well suddenly it becomes a very valuable system to develop games for. PS3 and Vita have some very interesting and exclusive features/functionality that developers can utilize so the stronger the environment the better it is to make games in that environment.

Since the disincentive is almost non-existent, that itself becomes an incentive to do it because the goal is to try to sell games.

Only for downloadable games tied to your account. For anything else, not until they solve the 'problem' of the 2nd hand market. Having 2nd hand copies out there that work on any system is not desirable. And with the release of Portal 2 a lot of people were saying I'll buy the ps3 version, get the steam code, and sell the game on.

Fixed it for you :P

I don't, really. Crossbuy is a good move by Sony to sell hardware. EA won't be interested in trying to help Sony sell Vitas; they just want to sell games. It wouldn't benefit them to support crossbuy with, say, Madden. They'd just be losing software sales.

Do you really think Sony would be that stupid? It probably costs next to nothing to port a ps3 game to vita.

Well I agree that it is a great feature and would love if it was the standard, but thats 100% against what the game industry is today. The whole plan since the beginning with Vita play on the go was buy both versions of the game so you can keep gaming while on the go. I have seen multiple people say the were doing/going to do this on The Show 12. Evein if you sell the PS3 at 50 and Vita at 30 you are making 80 off a game and a port as opposed to maing just 60. Now they are making the same off a game and a port for what the game itself would sell for.

Face it folks this is a desperation move by sony to get more Vitas sold. Im not a doomsayer on the system, but this is just an incentive to move a underselling product. Do you really think Sony would be doing this if Vita was selling exceptoinally great?