Game console development
I find it mildly surprising that of the big 3 gaming consoles Microsoft is the only one that has embraced homebrew developers. It's not free, but anyone can do it. For both Nintendo and Sony, you have to be a game company with experienced developers. Also the dev kit for the Wii is $1800 and for the PS3 it's >$10k.
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Why in the world would Microsoft care? I think you need a B-Movie budget to make a respectable console game now for either of the graphics-heavy platforms, and software dev tools even at $10k+ don't make that much of a difference (assuming the tools are not buggy pieces of crap). Its a game of investing millions and getting more millions out, rather than putting in thousands and getting out a million. I don't think those making games for PS3/PC/Xbox360 are terribly swayed in their choice of which to target (assuming not all 3) that the dev kits are cheap on XBox360.
If anywhere would have a market for niche games a small team or even lone developer can do on a shoestring it should be Wii, where there's TONS of stuff to download that fits that description. Then again, maybe they don't need to encourage crappy titles since they're already present in great numbers, including lots of what you can pick up at Frys.
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