Steam on Xbox 360 still possible, says Valve

PC games kingpin Valve believes there is still hope for its digital portal Steam to launch on Microsoft’s Xbox system.

Chet Faliszek, a writer at the Washington studio, told Develop that the final decision was Microsoft’s to make – suggesting that Valve’s existing deal to incorporate Steam on PS3 is not binding to any exclusivity.

Asked by Develop whether Steam arrive on Microsoft’s living-room console, Faliszek replied: “Maybe, we’ll see. That’s something Microsoft will has to decide. There’s some things going on with Portal 2 right now, but we’ll see”.

Valve’s oft-cited ‘games as a service’ initiative has in the past clashed with Microsoft’s own Xbox philosophy.

The PC edition of Team Fortress 2, for instance, has been updated more than 200 times through the Steam portal. On Xbox only a handful of updates have been released, and Valve was at one stage forced to charge customers for an update bundle repackaged as DLC.

But Valve is still making efforts to help support its Xbox 360-bound customers. The company recently announced that the first batch of Portal 2 DLC would be free to download across all platforms.

Last year Valve signed a landmark deal with Sony to incorporate the Steam platform onto PS3, in what was thought would give Valve a direct line to its customers.

Gabe Newell recently told Develop that Sony “will start to benefit” from opening PlayStation to external internet services.

“They’ve done the scary thing and I think it’s up to us to make sure Sony and its customers are rewarded,” he added.

“The games industry needs to figure out how to make the internet better instead of figuring out how to keep customers off the internet.”

But, in a newly published interview with Develop, Faliszek suggested that Steam on PS3 has not allowed Valve complete free reign to distribute updates to its customers.

Asked whether Steam can service incremental updates to PS3 games, Faliszek responded: “Somewhat. There’s some big changes that still need to go through, so we’ll have to see, we’re open to that and it’d be cool idea but we’re just going to have to wait.”