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thranx on 12 September 2010
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makingmusic476 said:
Reasonable said:
themanwithnoname said:

Valve should've known Microsoft's policies the moment they want to make a game for their console. Apparently, they either didn't, or did and failed to strongarm Microsoft into changing them. Valve not liking these policies is a fair point, but Gabe Newell's personal PR strategy seems to be making a legitimate complaint and then attacking what he has a complaint against with an over the top and eyeroll worthy exaggeration.

That being said, that does NOT explain why Valve hasn't bothered updating Team Fortress 2 since 2007.


It's clear from the context they did know, they just hoped to see the policies relaxed over time.  The lack of updates is directly tied to those policies.  Valve want to release content for free, MS want to charge, so Valve simply aren't releasing it.

I will be very curious, if PS3 versions of Valve titles keep in line with PC versions while 360  versions lag as this would all imply, to see if console interest in Valve titles switches from one platform to the other.  360 seems better suited for Valve in terms of US centric online community, but the lack of upgrades really kills Valve titles on the platform IMHO.

The difference between TF2 on PC vs 360 now is huge.  Even just little things like free DLC such as Crash Course vs using MS points could cummulatively change opinions.

Reading between the lines of their other comments, I'm very curious whether they'll go back and sort out the Orange Box or not on PS3.  They could, given with Portal 2 they'll have Source running properly on PS3 vs a port, and in the bigger picture getting all their titles on PS3 well supported would make the most sense.

It's more than just an implication at this point.  That's the whole reason they're implementing Steamworks - so they can keep the PC and ps3 versions updated simultaneously, something they will be unable to do on 360.  As a result of this, they'll able to implement cross platform play between the PC and ps3 versions.

@themanwithnoname:  They did know this was the case when they first began working on 360, but it wasn't something they hoped to strongarm MS into changing. They simply thought such a business model wasn't sustainable given the market, so they assumed Microsoft would change their policies over time.

From the original interview:

Gabe Newell: That’s why we’re really happy with the current situation with the PS3… We’re solving it now in a way that is going to work for our customers, rather than assuming something is going to emerge later that will allow us to fix this.

PC Gamer: Was the mistake on the Xbox side to think that Microsoft would let you update it more often?

Gabe Newell: We thought that there would be something that would emerge, because we figured it was a sort of untenable… “Oh yeah, we understand that these are the rules now, but it’s such a train wreck that something will have to change.”


Why would they think it was untenable? How was it a train wreck? Does he elaborate at all on that? Why did they think they would change something when there were no signs of that? Seems more like Gabe didn't think something that is different from how he does it would work at all, kind of arrogant. That is just bad planing on valves part.