Valve’s Gabe Newell recently praised Sony for allowing the integration of Steam on the PlayStation Network. Having initially been quite adverse to Sony’s hardware, this turnaround is a bit of a shock, but ever since Newell stepped on stage last E3 to announce plans to bring Portal 2 to the PS3, ties between the two have been closer than ever.
On the other hand, Microsoft’s Xbox Live is a much more restricted network, preventing Valve from bringing their software to Microsoft’s online platform. Needless to say, Valve isn’t happy with the current situation, only intensifying their appreciation for Sony’s willingness to cooperate.
When Portal 2’s downloadable content launches in September, PlayStation fans will reap the benefits of having Steamworks integration, Newell said when speaking with Eurogamer. He also went on to further lament the lack connectivity with Xbox Live.
We certainly can deliver a lot of value to customers to the degree to which we have those capabilities. With the PS3 obviously we made a lot more progress with that. The PS3 customers of Portal 2 are going to start to see the benefits of that with Portal 2 DLC coming out in September. So we’d really like to be able to do that for Xbox customers as well.
[Via]
