If you haven't been living under a rock for the past year, you would know that Valve and Sony weren't exactly on "speaking terms". This is mainly because Valve found themselves unable to create ports of their games to the PS3 system, and were rather outspoken about the console's "faults". Quoting from Gabe Newell, he stated that the PS3 was: "A waste of time", and "A disaster on many levels". He even recommended that Sony should apologise for "making" developers work on it, and they should scrap it and do it over. As you can see, they weren't fans of Sony, and vice-versa. Speculations say that Gabe was bribed to say this, others just plain agree with the statement. Clearly Valve were unhappy with the PS3, and refused to develop for it, much to EAs annoyance. Valve were cornered by them, and this lead to the creation of The Orange Box on the PS3, but as you can already tell, many complaints arose, that it was glitchy, or not as graphically developed as other platform versions. Valve used this further to state that the PS3 couldn't "handle" their quality of games, while others proclaim that it was because EA rushed them to port it to the PS3. This is a different debate however, believe whatever version of this story you want. Nothing happened for a while, although there were rumors about some Valve games coming to the PS3, such as Left 4 Dead 2, since box art showing a PS3 version was on EAs website. It is unknown whether EA wanted L4D2 on the PS3, like how Dead Rising 2 was appearing on the platform, but it was clear that Valve didn't, since it never did come to the console.
This is all back-story though, the real shocker started at Sony's E3 Press Conference this year, where none other that Gabe Newell showed up on stage. He wasn't greeted with boos and jeers, strangely. Everyone knew he wouldn't walk into what he considered "enemy territory" if he didn't have something mind-blowing to say - and he didn't disappoint! Out of the blue, there and then, he announced that Portal 2 was coming to the PS3, and it would be the best version on any console! On top of that, he also announced the introduction of Steam Cloud into the Playstation. How or when Valve intend to do this is unknown yet, which has left sparks flying everywhere - after all, this was a pretty random and shocking event! But what could have possibly brought this on? I mean, it's not every day that someone as outspoken as Gabe Newell publically apologises and offers one heck of an offer to their sworn enemy! It took a lot of guts to do what he did, and now he is admired even by the people he lashed out to!
Again, here are some speculations I've gathered. One story is that Microsoft wanted to take things in another direction, and Valve were very unhappy about that, so in retaliation, they hit Microsoft hard by going to their nemesis and supporting them. Another theory is that Valve are running short on money after their projects, so to reel in a few bucks, they decided to temporarily team up with Sony to raise publicity and get more people on Steam. Of course, there is the one that Sony bribed Valve to come to the PS3, but I doubt this, seeing as they have had a less than friendly relationship, and won't be won over that easily. However, it doesn't matter why Valve chose to do this, although it has become a heated debate recently. What matters to Playstation users is that Steam is coming to their home console, but what changes and implications could this cause?
Well, for starters, the most obvious thing would be the ability to buy games from Steam, which could seem like a second PSN Store. There is also the feature that allows Playstation users to mingle with PC gamers, allowing the rare phenomenon of cross-platform gaming. There is also the added possibility that Steam will only be accessible with Playstation Plus, Sony's new paying service to enrich the average PS3 gamer's experience. Another thing could be that you may have to pay for it, like a second Playstation Plus, although it is doubtful. A lot of these suggestions are merely speculation, but a few have been confirmed for real. So I ask you, what features would you like to see come with Valve's big introduction with the Playstation? Do you see it happening with the Xbox 360 too?
Tell me what you think in the comments below!
Helldivers 2 has become the talk of the town as players are seen discussing the game in real life with their friends and even strangers.
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Well, Valve already pointed out that it was because the PS3 gave more freedom to developers to do the type of things that Valve wanted to do than the 360 did. This is pretty much true because we've heard similar complaints about how the 360 is so "closed" from Square Enix when it came to FF14. So I think it's a very valid claim there.
I don't know if we'll actually see Steam for the PS3 because Steam DOES have a few games on there that Microsoft has some deals with to keep exclusive to the 360 (though having Steam on the PS3 would give the PS3 the first two games of Mass Effect). But I think it's possible and wanted.
im sure the ps3 will be the only console to have steam and sony and valve made this deal but i beleive that it was valves idea because once they started working on the ps3 more and understanding it better they realized what they can do with it. more than likely many games like L4D will come to the ps3 but some games on steam wont. then again there was some talk about how LBP will alow you to use a keyboard well maybe valve wants to make it so that the ps3 will have all the computer games on the console and easy to make computer gamers play with ps3 gamers and that would make steam so much bigger for that.so maybe all of steam games are coming to ps3 and sony is trying to exspand that like in how a keyboard can be used for LBP and perhaps more later on.and perhaps another reason valve is doing this is cause they want 3D highly unlikely tho
The Valve/Sony "feud" has all been one sided with "Fat Gabe" not being unable but unwilling to make PS3 versions of Valve titles. Its now up to Valve to prove its worth.
@slinky123456:
What are you talking about: you can use keyboards in LBP now. Could use them since day-one right along with headsets and have your Sackboy's mouth move as you talk.
Its being able to use Move as a construction tool that should be the big thing.
Valve will probably will most likely try to bring the Steam community together with PSN and update the social features. That's right, Steam has a community for those who don't know.
Steam for the PS3 seems highly unlikely for one reason alone. The PS3 is based more on mac technology then IBM, the cell architecture and processor mean that there would have to be some serious mods made to every game that is intended to support this new architecture. Porting to the PS3 platform from the PC is not nearly as easy of a task as it is to port from PC to Xbox, since the Xbox is built on proprietary IBM architecture.