Eurogamer

Portal 2 was more successful on the PC than it was on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, Valve boss Gabe Newell has revealed.

Speaking in an interview with Gamasutra, he explained that the studio never sets out to make games to specifically appeal to PC or console gamers and is often surprised to see which version fares better.

"We can never predict; I mean we just try to build good games and then we tend to be surprised," he said. "Portal 2 did better on the PC than it did on the consoles; Left 4 Dead did better on the consoles than it did on the PC."

Newell didn't clarify whether he was referring to units sold or total revenue earned.

"So you know we don't try to guess, because we're not sure what value there is to guessing," he continued.

"We've never had a situation where we said, 'We really, really want to build something that is more popular for the console guys.' Because usually we have a bunch of other higher priority problems we want to solve. So we're glad that people want to play our games wherever they want to play."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-30-portal-2-pc-outperformed-console-versions

that's because PC games usually have a longer life (especially on steam) and L4D 's life was kinda cut by L4D2.

Let's not forget also that Steam grew a lot since then and that the audience that was there for P2 was not there for L4D.

The other factors are that A) it's a zombie game. B) L4D2 is about the same price so people go thowards that first.

still L4D as only on 360 and not PS3 no? so that's even more of a gap to portal.

Something to think about -

Is he counting the free PC version given away with a PS3 copy in those PC numbers?

Ofcourse if you get a free PC version of portal 2 =p!

If you get a free console version with battlefied 3 pc version, the console version will outsell the PC version d'uh!

Does he count individual SKU? Because Left 4 Dead is a console exclusive and Portal 2 isn't. I'm pretty sure that when you add PS360 numbers together for Portal 2 it outsells the PC numbers.

But Left 4 Dead really had amazing sells on 360. It's surprising.

great news. i like valve cause they don't cater, and you'll likely see no exclusive dlc.

If only Shio were around to see this, even I thought L4D would have done better on PC/Steam

pezus said: Seece said: If only Shio were around to see this, even I thought L4D would have done better on PC/Steam L4D2 has probably sold more on Steam though.

Do we have any data on that?