Valve can not be bought unless Gabe wants it. And he will not sell. Valve is his baby he is a billionaire and idealist. I doubt he can be bought by anyone. 3 billion was 2012 so could be 4-5 already. Also its just estimations as Valve is not publicly traded. Their value would explode if there would be stocks also are there even numbers of what they earn publicly available ? Valve could be way bigger then estimated, only they know their exact worth. 

Oh, 4 or 5B? My god, now MS can't bought it! I know it isn't publicy traded. I'm just pointing to the ridiculous assumption that a gargantuan company like MS could not buy a much smaller one like Valve. And please, idealist? Don't be so damn naive. People said the same things about Notch and we know how it ended up. If he was an idealist, he wouldn't put DRM on his games. He is a businessman. His company is private because it probably isn't ready to go to the stock market or it simple isn't interesting for its profile, at least yet. Going public doesn't means that "anyone" can buy Valve. He could do that and keep the majority of shares and things would be exactly like they are, except because their financials would have to be public announced.

About the value, go to the stocks will usually make you valu increase. But even a massive increase to, let's say 10B still would be under MS reach. It's basically what they paid for Nokia. So, my point remains: MS obviously has the resources to buy Valve if Gabe is willing to say or if they start being public traded and with ease.

Also notice that while the value tends to increase with an open capital at first, it can go down extremely quickly if the quarterly numbers aren't what investors expect.

I disagree. I even think that the next xbox console will be a very competitive product compared to Sony's. At one point you need your brand in the living room of customers, and that means with some kind of hardware that is yours (it's the only way).

Even Valve, the king of services, are trying to apply that strategy with their Steam boxes.

Ofcourse MS could buy it if it was for sale. There is no discussion. My point was that it would require a respectable amount of money even for MS to buy it. However Gabe is too rich to be bought and he is different than Notch. He build his own company vision over decades with a very unique managment structure and philosophies. He has fun doing this. Why would he sell if he already has so much money that he can not possibly spend. 

Time will tell however I personally think nobody will buy valve aslong as they are doing fine, until gabe dies or steps back.

With MS' bad business decisions and practices with 360 and XB1, I don't mind them getting out of the game business next generation and going back to focusing on PC and PC games.

Is he your personal friend or something? You are infering that the guy has philosophies just by his public persona. Don't be naive.

I am not naive I dont know him and its just an assumption however its the best guess based on what we know about him. If the information changes I would change my opinion. Atleast there is a good logical reasoning behind my assumption

Am I the only person who bloody hates playing most games on their PC and having to deal with maintaining it being gaming worthy? I just want to buy a console, use a controller, and buy physical games to play on it.

On what we know about the public image of the CEO/owner of a company? Please. 1 year ago you would be saying the same thing about Notch. There isn't any logical in your argument.

I wouldnt have said that back then. I never did. Also a 20+ year public profile is a bit more reliable than a few years of being in the spot light. he left MS because he did not like it there plenty of more data and actions to go by, not just empty words but actions that crystalized. Just because notch sold out does not make gabe newell any more likely to sell out.